Printed from: PhysLink.com; https://www.physlink.com/news/Index.cfm?ID=651 Original publication date: Friday May 21, 2010. NASA's MISR Provides Unique Views of Gulf Oil Slick
The white arrow in the right-center of the image points to a plume of smoke, most likely from a controlled burn of oil collected on the surface. Controlled burns of oil began in early May to attempt to remove oil from the open water. The plume appears as a dark streak against the brighter reflection of sunlight off the ocean surface. The lower two panels are enlarged images of the area around the smoke plume acquired by MISR's 46-degree forward-viewing and 46-degree backward-viewing cameras. At these viewing angles and under the viewing conditions on this date, the smoke particles appear bright and sunglint from the ocean surface is much weaker. The views at the two different angles cover the same physical area of 42 by 30 kilometers (26 by 19 miles). The clouds in the lower right quadrant of these panels appear to shift in position, due to the different camera view angles. However, a bright point to the south of the plume does not show such a shift, and is likely a boat observing the controlled burn. The apparent shift in position of the smoke plume itself places its altitude at about 560 meters (1,840 feet) above the surface. News Story Origin and Copyright: NASA/JPL : http://www.jpl.nasa.gov Original news release: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-173 For more physics & astronomy stories like this one, go to: physlink.com |