[HN Gopher] New NASA satellite mapped the oceans like never before
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New NASA satellite mapped the oceans like never before
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 42 points
Date : 2025-03-25 15:28 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.zmescience.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.zmescience.com)
| anthk wrote:
| I hope these can be downloaded under Marble (a libre map tool)
| soon.
| ixtli wrote:
| sad to see this sort of research get slowly defunded / privatized
| araes wrote:
| Opinion, yet somewhere along the line it seems like NASA had the
| ability taken away to advertise properly.
|
| The article, and the project website have the same issues. [1]
|
| [1] https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ground-systems-and-data/
|
| Three major objectives listed: 1. Detecting New
| Ocean Features (double resolution on undersea mountain heights,
| heat and carbon transport, ocean circulation at 15-25 km)
| 2. Enabling Data Applications (?, promote products, facilitate
| feedback, provide collaborations, design communication
| strategies) 3. Assessing Freshwater Resources (time
| varying water presence, flow, hydrology, and detection of
| possible water areas currently dry)
|
| Personally, in charge of the project, would have led with the
| last item (3) and reordered the list as 3, 1, 2. The second
| objective is so vague it seems like a throw it over the fence
| objective and hope somebody does something.
|
| Looking, it seems like the project is using interferometric
| synthetic-aperture radar [2][3][4]. Notably, this is actually
| rather difficult to tell from their instrument list and data
| packages. Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) and Microwave
| Radiometer. Low-Rate (Ocean) Interferogram Data Product,
| *Radiometer Brightness Temperatures and Troposphere Data Product
| (including Operational and Interim) [5] The Wikipedia page is
| quite a bit clearer about the capabilities. [3]
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_synthetic-
| aper...
|
| [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Water_and_Ocean_Topogr...
|
| [4] https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/flight-systems/
|
| [5] https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ground-systems-and-data/
|
| Lots of other cool stuff that can be done with distant, remote
| sensing, synthetic-aperture radar, with a 15-25 km resolution.
| List just from the intro of the Wikipedia article. Geophysical
| natural hazards (earthquakes), volcanoes and landslides, ice
| flows (deformation and cracking, glaciers, icebergs) and
| structural engineering (subsidence and structural stability).
|
| Ex: See the waves of ground oscillation ripple away from each
| earthquake observed. [6]
|
| [6]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Izmit_in...
|
| Ex2: Ground subsistence in oil fields [7]
|
| [7]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Lost_Hil...
|
| And the data can probably be combined with other space based
| resources like Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B from ESA. [8]
|
| [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel-1
|
| SWOT's orbit extends from 78deg S to 78deg N, covering at least
| 86% of the globe. SWOT revisits the same path all over the Earth
| every 21 days in 292 unique orbits. It also has a microwave
| Radiometer that measures the amount of water vapor between the
| satellite and Earth's surface. More water vapor means slower
| radar signals. Probably can do volumetric cloud imaging over the
| 86% number every 3 weeks. It's a little slow for weather
| satellites, yet averaged gives a general idea of cloud depth
| expected during each season on most parts of the Earth.
| kleiba wrote:
| MH370?
| rbanffy wrote:
| If we say it's unbelievable, that nothing ever came close to this
| and this is yuge, will they get proper funding?
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(page generated 2025-03-25 23:03 UTC)