Waves on top of waves. In Surah An Noor (The Light) –  Allah (swt) describes the overwhelming darkness in the deep oceans/seas in which great waves are topped by great waves. This phenomenon is referred to as internal waves –  something that has only recently been identified through mostly satellite imaging.

According to NASA – Internal waves are phenomena that were scarcely known to science until the satellite era. They can be hundreds of meters tall and tens to hundreds of kilometers long. If you were on a boat, you would not necessarily see or feel internal waves because they are not expressed at the surface in different wave heights. Instead, they show up as smoother and rougher water surfaces that are visible from airplanes and satellites.

Enhanced in the NASA image above, these long wave forms moving across the sea surface are a visible manifestation of slow waves moving tens to hundreds of meters beneath the sea surface.

Internal waves form because the ocean is layered. Deep water is cold, dense, and salty, while shallower water is relatively warmer, lighter, and fresher. The differences in density and salinity cause layers of the ocean to behave like different fluids. When tides, currents, and other large-scale effects of Earth’s rotation and gravity drag water masses over some seafloor formations, it creates wave actions within the sea that are similar to those happening in the atmosphere.

As internal waves move through the deep ocean, the lighter water above flows up and down the crests and troughs. Surface water bunches up over the troughs and stretches over the crests, creating alternating lines of calm water at the crests and rough water at the troughs. Calm, smooth waters reflect more light directly back to the satellite, resulting in a bright, pale stripe along the length of the internal wave. The rough waters in the trough scatter light in all directions, forming a dark line.

As NASA noted in a memo titled Waves Above and Below the Water– Internal waves are quirky phenomena that were scarcely known to science until the satellite era. The first known successful artificial satellite launch on Earth was the Sputnik 1 . It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957 (itself also unlikely to capture internal waves due to more primitive functions of satellites in the 1960’s). This specifically shared article by NASA was published in 2016. Approximately 1400 years ago – The Quran mentions waves topped by waves into the depth of the oceans (Internal Waves) plus also accurately noting the loss of light and extreme darkness as one goes deeper into the ocean: “if a man stretches out his hand, he will not see it!” Simply a miracle only the Creator would know at the time!