Latest Interferometric synthetic aperture radar Stories
Using satellite radar data, NASA-funded scientists have observed, for the first time, the healing of subtle, natural surface scars from an earthquake that occurred on a "buried" fault several miles below the surface-a fault whose fractures are not easily observed at Earth's surface.Reporting in the March 5 issue of Nature, geophysicist Eric Fielding of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., describes how so-called "buried" faults are not so hidden after all....
More than 200 scientists from around the world have attended the weeklong POLinSAR 2009 workshop hosted at ESRIN, ESA's Earth Observation centre in Frascati, Italy. Discussions among the participants include new techniques for providing vital information on our planet that could help to combat global warming through carbon accounting, wetland preservation and improve climate models.Using the novel polarimetric mode of the PALSAR synthetic aperture radar (SAR) aboard Japan's ALOS satellite, Dr...
Based on the outstanding success of the first tandem mission between ERS-2 and Envisat last year, ESA has paired the two satellites together again to help improve our understanding of the planet. ERS-2, ESA's veteran spacecraft, and Envisat, the largest environmental satellite ever built, both carry Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments that provide high resolution images of the Earth's surface.By combining two or more SAR images of the same site, slight alterations that may have...
ESA -- Satellite images acquired by ESA's ERS-2 revealed the recently discovered changes in Yellowstone's caldera are the result of molten rock movement 15 kilometres below the Earth's surface, according to a recent study published in Nature.Using Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry, InSAR for short, Charles Wicks, Wayne Thatcher and other U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists mapped the changes in the northern rim of the caldera, or crater, and discovered it had risen about 13...
JPL -- New NASA research confirms that northern metropolitan Los Angeles is being squeezed at a rate of 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) a year, straining an area between two earthquake faults that serve as geologic bookends north and south of the affected region. The compression of the Los Angeles landscape is being monitored by a network of more than 250 precision global positioning system receivers known as the Southern California Integrated Global Positioning System Network, as well as by...
ESA -- The world's oldest volcano observatory has added satellites to its repertoire of instruments to monitor volcanic features flanking Naples. The result has been the most detailed view ever of ground motion in this vicinity. When it was founded back in 1841, the Vesuvius Observatory of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology was the world's first scientific institution devoted to volcanoes. Now its remit is more than simply scientific: the Observatory's 24-hour...
ESA -- Ten years and 52,289 orbits on from its launch, the Earth Observation mission of ESA's ERS-2 satellite continues with all instruments functioning well. A growing global network of ground stations is receiving data from the veteran spacecraft. A solid decade of ERS-2 observations has helped cement a worldwide community of more than 3,000 users. Demand for ERS-2 data is ever increasing, spurred on by the fact that the spacecraft keeps on updating its data archives as it orbits the...
