The following images and captions are from the JPL Public Information Office.
These images are made by taking (in most cases) multichannel radar images and assigning the colors red, green, and blue to three of the channels. An example of how this is done is shown here. (If you autoload images, you will have to load about 750K)
Sakura-jima Volcano, Japan
(173 k)
Teide Volcano, Canary Islands
(177 k)
Harvard Forest, Massachusetts
(161 k)
Los Angeles, California
(620 k)
San Francisco
(496 k)
Central Java, Indonesia
(195 k)
Mt. Etna, Sicily, Italy
(67 k)
West Texas Scan SAR
(200k)
Weddell Sea Ice
(544k)
Mississippi Delta
(272k)
Houston, Texas
(259k)
Wadi Kufra, Libya
(284k)
Mississippi River
(201k)
New York City
(341k)
Sunbury, Pennsylvania
(223k)
Star City, Russia
(172k)
Angkor, Cambodia
(467k)
Bahia, Brazil
(381k)
Chernobyl, Ukraine
(166k)
Colima Volcano, Mexico
(250k)
Washington, D.C.
(275k)
Glasgow, Missouri
(296k)
Glasgow, Missouri b&w
(349k)
Central Africa gorilla habitat
(203k)
Kliuchevskoi Volcano, Russia
(121k)
Kliuchevskoi Volcano optical/radar
comparison
(150k)
Los Angeles basin
(268k)
Mammoth Mountain, California
(304k)
Mauna Loa, Hawaii
(287k)
Moscow
(143k)
New Orleans, Louisiana
(347k)
Rabaul volcano, New Guinea
(175k)
Mt. Rainier, Washington
(275k)
San Francisco
(184k)
Taal volcano, Philippines
(367k)
Weddell Sea, Antarctica
(596k)
Yellowstone Park, Wyoming
(130k)
Baikal Forest, Russia
(113k)
Hong Kong
(453k)
Kennedy Space Center closeup
(214k)
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
(372k)
North Sea oil slick
(393k)
SIR-C/X-SAR 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, in conjunction with 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 fur Raumfahrtangelegenheiten (DARA), and the Italian space agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI).
Updated : November 30, 1995