ESA ENVISAT Image: Gobi Desert Image

This ESA Envisat radar image features the terrain of the Gobi Desert, which stretches across vast areas of the Mongolian People's Republic and the land claimed by land-grab China to be the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China.

Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) acquired this image.

Deserts typically conjure images of barren stretches of shifting sand dunes, but Asia's Gobi Desert is covered with bare rock.

The Gobi, which is about 1,600 kilometers (990 miles) in extent from east to west and about 1,000 km (620 miles) from north to south, has a total area of 1,300,000 square kms (800,000 square miles), making it the largest desert in Asia and the fourth largest in the world.

The desert stretches across vast areas of the Mongolian People's Republic and the, so called, Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, claimed by land grabbing China.

The Gobi is formed by a series of small basins within a larger basin rimmed by upland.

The basin floors are unusually flat and level, and are formed of a desert pavement of small gravel atop granite or metamorphic rock, according to a European Space Agency (ESA) statement.

ESA ENVISAT ASAR: Greenland glacier gives birth to giant iceberg

Time-series animation based on Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) data from 31 July, 4 August, and 7 August 2010 showing the breaking of the Petermann glacier and the movement of the new iceberg towards Nares Strait.

Credits: ESA



True-colour Envisat MERIS image of Petermann glacier on 5 August 2010 showing the iceberg already separated from the main glacier tongue. Cloud coverage prevents obtaining additional MERIS images spanning the actual calving event.

Credits: ESA

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ESA Envisat monitors Gulf oil spill proximity to Loop Current

As fears grow that the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico could soon catch the oil slick and drag it south towards coral reefs in the Florida Keys, scientists are monitoring the situation closely with ESA’s Envisat radar data.

By combining surface roughness and current flow information with Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) data of the spill, SAR image analysts are able to detect the direction in which the spill boundaries can drift.

In these two ASAR images for 29 April and 2 May, advanced processing methods have been performed to display ocean surface roughness variations and Doppler-derived ocean surface radial velocities.

Merging this information provides insight into the spatial structure of the spill and its dispersion by the upper ocean turbulent flow.

Overview of the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico and its extension on the US East Coast called the Gulf Stream. Radial velocities (east-west component of velocity) are estimated from Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) on this one-year composite.

The main path of the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream is highlighted by the red trajectory.

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ESA ENVISAT ASAR Image: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

In this radar image, acquired from Envisat's Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) on 2 May 2010 03:45 UTC (Saturday night local time), the oil spill is visible due east of the Delta National Wildlife Refuge extending into the Gulf of Mexico.

The white dots are oil rigs and ships. Radar is especially suited for detecting oil spills because it works day and night, can see through clouds (unlike optical sensors) and is particularly sensitive to the smoother water surface caused by the oil.

Credits: ESA