Whales live deep in the oceans and satellites are up in space. So what is it that connects the two? A science project conducted by the British Antarctic Survey used satellite technology to count the number of whales and estimate their population in Argentina. This is quite an accomplishment as it is difficult to determine marine animal populations anywhere.

Lead author Peter Fretwell from the British Antarctic Survey, said that marine mammals are extremely difficult to count on a large scale and traditional methods, such as counting from platforms or land, can be costly and inefficient.  This is not the first time that satellites have been used to try and count whales, but previous efforts have not been quite successful due to the limitations of older technology.

Fretwell  added that using Very High Resolution satellite imagery, alongside image processing software, they were able to automatically detect and count whales breeding in part of the Golfo Nuevo, Peninsula Valdes in Argentina. He hopes that in the future it will be an even easier task to count the whales in the oceans around the world. Would you be interested in taking on that science project?