Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Surface Rupture From Ridgecrest Earthquake Spotted From Space

posted by Fnord666 on Friday July 12 2019, @12:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Surface Rupture from Ridgecrest Earthquake Spotted from Space (Photo)

One of last week's powerful Southern California earthquakes created a crack in the planet's crust that's visible from space.

Photos snapped on Saturday (July 6) by tiny Earth-observing Dove satellites, which are built and operated by San Francisco-based company Planet, show a new surface rupture near the desert town of Ridgecrest, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles.

[...] Planet's Dove cubesats are tiny but extremely capable: Their bodies are smaller than a loaf of bread, but the craft can capture photos with a resolution of 10 feet to 16.5 feet (3 to 5 meters). Planet (previously known as Planet Labs) currently has more than 100 operational Doves in low-Earth orbit, whose imagery the company sells to a variety of customers.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Surface Rupture From Ridgecrest Earthquake Spotted From Space | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 11 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Booga1 on Friday July 12 2019, @02:34PM (2 children)

    by Booga1 (6333) on Friday July 12 2019, @02:34PM (#866239)

    Moving forward, seeing articles where "It's visible from space!" is the headline will be far less interesting. The best spy satellites they're willing to tell us about have the ability to resolve images as fine as four inches, so my reaction is "of course it's visible from space!"

    Maybe it would be more impressive if they could quantify it as "Visible with the naked eye from space."

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   4  

  • (Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @03:47PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @03:47PM (#866274)

    The resolution to see a cigarette (4 inches) was publicly announced about 30 years ago. I'm sure it's good enough to see something as small as Hillary's micropecker by now.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 12 2019, @04:29PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 12 2019, @04:29PM (#866297) Journal

      I was thinking similar. Wayyyy back when I was in the Navy, they claimed that they could read a license plate from orbit. All the sat imagery that I got to see at that time was so grainy, you were lucky to identify a pickup from a sedan. Or, about the quality that Google Earth offers today, to civilians. The Intel communities can probably run facial and gait recognition from orbit.