P-49764 November 5, 1998
This spaceborne radar image shows Southern California's San
Fernando Valley with its dense network of streets and freeways in
the center. The Santa Monica Mountain range is shown along the
bottom of the image and it separates the valley from the city of
Los Angeles. The San Gabriel Mountains are shown in the upper
right. Some city areas appear red due to the angle of streets
and buildings relative to the incoming radar beam. Dark areas in
the valley are two airports (dark strips) and a large flood
control basin (just left of center). Urban planners can use
images like this one to study land-use patterns in cities and
surrounding areas. The lower left and upper right corners are
areas of no data beyond the edge of the radar data swath. The
image was acquired by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) onboard the space shuttle
Endeavour on October 3, 1994. SIR-C/X-SAR, a joint mission of the
German, Italian and the United States space agencies. Colors are
assigned to different radar frequencies and polarizations as
follows: red is L-band horizontally transmitted, horizontally
received; green is L-band horizontally transmitted, vertically
received; blue is C-band horizontally transmitted, vertically
received.
For a full-resolution (35.8 Megabyte) copy of this image, press
here
For a browse resolution (318 Kilobyte) copy of this image, press
here
Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C and X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) is part of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. The radars illuminate Earth with microwaves allowing detailed observations at any time, regardless of weather or sunlight conditions. SIR-C/X-SAR uses three microwave wavelengths: L-band (24 cm), C-band (6 cm) and X-band (3 cm). The multi-frequency data will be used by the international scientific community to better understand the global environment and how it is changing. The SIR-C/X-SAR data, complemented by aircraft and ground studies, will give scientists clearer insights into those environmental changes which are caused by nature and those changes which are induced by human activity. SIR-C was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. X-SAR was developed by the Dornier and Alenia Spazio companies for the German space agency, Deutsche Agentur fuer Raumfahrtangelegenheiten (DARA), and the Italian space agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), with the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fuer Luft und Raumfahrt e.v.(DLR), the major partner in science, operations, and data processing of X-SAR.
