(CNN)Nearly 10 years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a study suggests "invisible and toxic oil" made the spill much worse than some experts have estimated.
The study, published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed Science Advances journal, says satellites were not able to fully detect oil in large areas of the Gulf of Mexico.
The 2010 oil spill, considered one of the worst environmental disasters in US history, was triggered by an explosion on the BP-contracted Transocean Ltd. Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers on board and released approximately 168 million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
Claire Paris-Limouzy, a professor of ocean sciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School and co-author of the study, told CNN the spill was about 30% larger than estimated. It reached the Texas shore, the Florida Keys, the coast of Tampa and parts of the east coast of Florida, according to the study.
