InformationWeek: NASA radar to study Gulf oil spill
The same technology used to detect the effect of a Mexican earthquake on the earth's surface will help determine how oil has penetrated ecological zones in the Gulf of Mexico.
Researchers in cleanup effort will soon have new images of the properties of the oil slick thanks to NASA radar technology recently used to study the effects of seismic activity on earth.
NASA's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) was deployed over the Gulf this week on a NASA Gulfstream III.
Researchers hope that measurements taken by UAVSAR can help determine the extent to which the oil has penetrated sensitive coastal ecological zones.
They also hope to gather baseline data for studies on how long the effects of the spill will persist, which areas will be most affected and to help inform the damage-recovery process.
The UAVSAR's flights follow previous imaging missions NASA has undertaken to help with the spill relief effort at the request of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has been overseeing the effort since the spill occurred April 20.
Those missions were flown by NASA's ER-2 science aircraft with a device called the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) on board, and were focused on trying to determine the thickness and composition of the oil.
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