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TECHHEALTHPLANET EARTHSPACESTRANGE NEWSANIMALSHISTORYHUMAN NATURESHOP
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TECHHEALTHPLANET EARTHSPACESTRANGE NEWSANIMALSHISTORYHUMAN NATURESHOP
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Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech View full size image
This false-color image of Colombia's Galeras Volcano, was acquired by UAVSARon March 13, 2013. A highly active volcano, Galeras features a breached calderaand an active cone that produces numerous small to moderate explosive eruptions. It is located immediatelywest of the city of Pasto.
Radar Plane Scans Volcanoes, Archaeological Sitesby Becky Oskin, Senior Writer | April 04, 2013 06:03pm ET
NASA's globe-trotting,remote-sensing planewrapped up a month-longtrip to Central and SouthAmerica in March, returningwith images of volcanoes,Amazon floods andarchaeological sites.
The small Gulfstream-IIIpassenger plane carries a 10-foot-long (3 meters) radarpod, the unmanned aerialvehicle synthetic apertureradar (UAVSAR). The radarscans Earth's surface withradio waves to detect andmeasure changes of less thanhalf an inch (1 centimeter).In past years, flight passesincluded volcanoes, glaciers,earthquakes and landslides.
This March, researchers hada long list of targets to hit inCentral and South America.But first, they flew overgroundwater basins inArizona's Cochise Countyfor the Arizona Department
of Water Resources, to monitor seasonal changes in the surface elevation that reveal clues to the groundwaterstored beneath.
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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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OnMarch17, 2013, NASA'sUninhabited Aerial VehicleSynthetic Aperture Radar(UAVSAR) acquiredsynthetic aperture radar dataover the Napo River inEcuador and Peru.
In Central America, the radar team looked at coastal mangrove forests and active volcanoes. In South America, thesites ranged from Chilean wineries and shrinking tropical glaciers to Amazon cloud forests and Moche culturearchaeological sites in Peru.
"The radar is sensitive to water content of soil, and soil moisture constrains a lot of ecosystem processes," YangZheng, UAVSAR operational processing lead, told OurAmazingPlanet during a UAVSAR demo at NASA'sDryden Flight Research Center in January. In the world's forests, "We're trying to make the step from knowingwhere there's forest to how much carbon is stored in the forest and understanding carbon processes," said Zheng,who is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The UAVSAR data is higher resolution, with less interfering noise than most such data from satellites, accordingto NASA. Its GPS system flies the plane in a line with real-time corrections via satellite phone, providing globalcoverage.
"We can fly within a 10-meter tube," said Naiara Pinto, UAVSAR science coordinator, at the Dryden flight demo.
Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google+. Original article onLiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.
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Becky Oskin
Becky Oskin is a senior writer for Live Science. She covers earth science, climate change and space, as well asgeneral science topics. Becky was a science reporter at The Pasadena Star-News and has freelanced for NewScientist and the American Institute of Physics. She earned a master's degree in geology from Caltech, a bachelor'sdegree from Washington State University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University ofCalifornia, Santa Cruz.Becky Oskin on
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