English: Located in the Arctic Ocean and well within the Artic Circle, the rugged mountains of the Svalbard archipelago are capped with snow and glaciers, even in the all-day sunshine of the polar summer. This group of islands form the northernmost portion of Norway, sitting about 580 miles (930 km) north of the city of Tromsø, Norway—and only slightly more than 800 miles (1,280 km) south of the North Pole. Spitsbergen is the largest and western-most of the nine main islands.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of Svalbard surrounded by cloud on August 25, 2023.

Green and aquamarine tones color the waters between and around the islands, which likely marks the presence of a summer phytoplankton bloom. These microscopic plant-like organisms live in these waters in small amounts year-round, but can reproduce explosively when conditions are right. They form the base of the marine food web, helping to nourish the wide array of sea life that thrives in this region.