Arctic Ocean over the Arctic Ocean (see Polar route). The Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about , almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is long. It is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It is generally taken to include Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, White Sea and other tributary bodies of water. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the
Milky seas effect Milky seas effect Milky seas, also called mareel, is a luminous phenomenon in the ocean in which large areas of seawater (up to ) appear to glow brightly enough at night to be seen by satellites orbiting Earth. Modern science only tentatively attributes this effect to bioluminescent bacteria or dinoflagellates, causing the sea to uniformly display an eerie blue glow at night. However, no modern research proves that bioluminescent bacteria are capable of illuminating the ocean from horizon to horizon and for days at a time, as described in mariners' tales for centuries (notably appearing in chapter 23 of Jules