{"id":3077,"date":"2026-09-10T12:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/2026\/09\/10\/ten-quirky-facts-about-plant-fluorescence\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T12:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:45:00","slug":"ten-quirky-facts-about-plant-fluorescence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/2026\/09\/10\/ten-quirky-facts-about-plant-fluorescence\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten quirky facts about plant fluorescence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2026\/08\/detecting_plant_stress_from_space\/27432809-1-eng-GB\/Detecting_plant_stress_from_space_card_full.jpg\" alt=\"Detecting plant stress from space\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If you had to describe a plant, the first thing you might start with is its colour \u2013 and the first colour that usually comes to mind, is green. And indeed, by and large, plants appear green to our eyes because they contain chlorophyll, which absorbs blue and red light much more strongly than green light. Behind this green fa\u00e7ade though, plants are secretly glowing. This phenomenon is called solar induced fluorescence, and it gives scientists an unusual way to spy on photosynthesis \u2013 all the way from space.<\/p>\n<p>As ESA prepares to launch its Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) mission on 15 September 2026, here are 10 surprising facts about this faint glow that could transform how we assess the health of Earth&#8217;s vegetation.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you had to describe a plant, the first thing you might start with is its colour \u2013 and the first colour that usually comes to mind, is green. And indeed, by and large, plants appear green to our eyes because they contain chlorophyll, which absorbs blue and red light much more strongly than green [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}