Photo Identification P-44747
October 9, 1994
Moscow, Russia
This is a vertically
polarized L-band image of the southern half of Moscow, an area which has been
inhabited for 2,000 years. The image covers a diameter of approximately 50
kilometers (31 miles) and was taken on September 30, 1994 by the Spaceborne
Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar aboard the space shuttle
Endeavour. The city of Moscow was founded about 750 years ago and today is home
to about 8 million residents. The southern half of the circular highway (a road
that looks like a ring) can easily be identified as well as the roads and
railways radiating out from the center of the city. The city was named after
the Moskwa River and replaced Russia's former capital, St. Petersburg, after
the Russian Revolution in 1917. The river winding through Moscow shows up in
various gray shades. The circular structure of many city roads can easily be
identified, although subway connections covering several hundred kilometers are
not visible in this image. The white areas within the ring road and outside of
it are buildings of the city itself and its suburban towns. Two of many
airports are located in the west and southeast of Moscow, near the corners of
the image. The Kremlin is located north just outside of the imaged city
center. It was actually built in the 16th century, when Ivan III was czar, and
is famous for its various churches. In the surrounding area, light gray
indicates forests, while the dark patches are agricultural areas. The various
shades from middle gray to dark gray indicate different stages of harvesting,
ploughing and grassland.-----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.
![[MOSCOW, RUSSIA]](MOSCOW.GIF)