Is it possible to see car license plates, stars on shoulder straps and newspaper headlines from a spy satellite? Possibilities of modern space optics. Satellite Photos: The Angle That Changes Everything

When the USSR launched the world's first artificial satellite into Earth orbit in 1957,
There was a panic in the USA because... it was believed that the USSR was a technologically backward country.

What can space optics do? Is it true that from a satellite you can see license plates of cars, stars on shoulder straps and headlines in newspapers - how ordinary people scared each other during the Cold War? Cosmoblogger ZELENYIKOT on specific examples talks about the capabilities of modern satellites.

To begin with, a small discovery for many: in Google Map No satellite images resolution above 50 cm per pixel. Until recently, commercial distribution more detailed satellite imagery was prohibited in the United States. Therefore, if you find photographs in some city where you can see people walking and other details - this is aerial photography, you can publish it.

This contradiction did not suit private space traders for a long time, and they nevertheless lobbied for a relaxation of the law, and now it is possible to sell images with a resolution of up to 25 cm per pixel. This is the limit of commercial satellite imaging today.

But even such photographs require sophisticated technology. For example, DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite: resolution 31 cm, telescope mirror diameter 1.1 m, cost $650 million.

As an example, DigitalGlobe posted pictures of Madrid.

As you can see, you can see a lot of details: passenger cars are easy to distinguish from trucks, even, it seems, people swimming in pools can be seen as dots. But Madrid was not chosen by chance: the closer to the equator, the less cloudy it is. Dubai is also often chosen to demonstrate the capabilities of satellites - there are many colorful objects there, and the desert weather is conducive to observation.

The colossal costs of creating private satellites capable of such high-quality imaging raise a logical question: how do they pay for themselves? There is no secret to this: more than 50% of DigitalGlobe's orders come from the Pentagon. The rest is from Google and individual customers.

But these are still commercial satellites, but what can the military and the CIA do?

Everything is more complicated here, but on the whole it is quite predictable. The legendary and most powerful American spy satellite belongs to the Keyhole-11 series. Little is known for certain about it, even its appearance is not completely clear, although amateur astronomers periodically “intercept” it.

But it is known that the Hubble space telescope was created on a production line from which spy satellites had previously come off, and a couple of years ago the American spy department (National Reconnaissance Office) donated to NASA two telescopes with a diameter of 2.4 meters, which were lying around in a warehouse.

Therefore, it is most likely that KH-11 has a mirror with a diameter of 2.4 meters, like the famous Hubble Space Telescope.

Through a simple comparison with WorldView-3, which has a 1.1 meter mirror, we find that the quality of spy shots should be about 2.3 times better. But there is a difference: WorldView-3 flies at an altitude of 617 km, and the youngest KH-11 (called USA-245) at an altitude of 270 to 970 km.

The Hubble Space Telescope from an altitude of 700 km could photograph the Earth with a resolution of up to 10-15 cm, in ideal conditions if he were allowed technical capabilities. Accordingly, the KH-11 at the lowest point of its orbit is capable of providing a resolution of up to 5 cm. But, again, this is under ideal conditions, in the absence of clouds, smog, fog and just dust above the subject. In addition, the higher the resolution and the closer the satellite is to the Earth’s surface, the narrower its imaging swath and the less opportunity to look around. That is, it is advisable to use such survey only for previously explored objects, in clear weather, and only at a time determined by the orbit of the device.

That’s why the American military pays the American businessmen to keep their technical means there is not enough, and it is easier to buy the necessary images than to create a bunch of satellites, each costing an aircraft carrier.

And in order to present the quality of images at different resolutions, I have prepared an approximate diagram based on aerial photography data.

Thus, under ideal conditions, theoretically, just one spy satellite is able to see the license plate strip on a car in the form of several white pixels. But reading the issue, not to mention the shoulder straps and newspapers, is simply physically impossible.

When in 1957 the USSR launched the world's first artificial satellite into Earth orbit, there was a panic in the USA, because... it was believed that the USSR was a technologically backward country

Illustration: "Dawn of the Space Age" by Gregory Todd, created in honor of the 50th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite Earth

What can space optics do? Is it true that from a satellite you can see license plates of cars, stars on shoulder straps and headlines in newspapers - how ordinary people scared each other during the Cold War?

To begin with, a small discovery for many: Google Map does not have satellite images with a resolution higher than 50 cm per pixel. Until recently, commercial distribution of more detailed satellite imagery was prohibited in the United States. Therefore, if you find photographs in some city where you can see people walking and other details - this is aerial photography, you can publish it.

This contradiction did not suit private space traders for a long time, and they nevertheless lobbied for a relaxation of the law, and now it is possible to sell images with a resolution of up to 25 cm per pixel. This is the limit of commercial satellite imaging today.

But even such photographs require sophisticated technology. For example, DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite: resolution 31 cm, telescope mirror diameter 1.1 m, cost $650 million.

As an example, DigitalGlobe posted pictures of Madrid.

Large version of the image - (5mb)

As you can see, you can see a lot of details: passenger cars are easy to distinguish from trucks, even, it seems, people swimming in pools can be seen as dots. But Madrid was not chosen by chance: the closer to the equator, the less cloudy it is. Dubai is also often chosen to demonstrate the capabilities of satellites - there are many colorful objects there, and the desert weather is conducive to observation.

The colossal costs of creating private satellites capable of such high-quality imaging raise a logical question: how do they pay for themselves? There is no secret to this: more than 50% of DigitalGlobe's orders come from the Pentagon. The rest is from Google and individual customers.

But these are still commercial satellites, but what can the military and the CIA do?

Everything is more complicated here, but on the whole it is quite predictable. The legendary and most powerful American spy satellite belongs to the Keyhole-11 series. Little is known about it for certain; even its appearance is not completely clear, although amateur astronomers periodically “intercept” it.

But it is known that the Hubble space telescope was created on a production line from which spy satellites had previously come off, and a couple of years ago the American spy department (National Reconnaissance Office) donated to NASA two telescopes with a diameter of 2.4 meters, which were lying around in a warehouse.

Therefore, it is most likely that KH-11 has a mirror with a diameter of 2.4 meters, like the famous Hubble Space Telescope.

Through a simple comparison with WorldView-3, which has a 1.1 meter mirror, we find that the quality of spy shots should be about 2.3 times better. But there is a difference: WorldView-3 flies at an altitude of 617 km, and the youngest KH-11 (called USA-245) at an altitude of 270 to 970 km.

The Hubble Space Telescope, from an altitude of 700 km, could photograph the Earth with a resolution of up to 10-15 cm, in ideal conditions, if technical capabilities allowed it. Accordingly, the KH-11 at the lowest point of its orbit is capable of providing a resolution of up to 5 cm. But, again, this is in ideal conditions, in the absence of clouds, smog, fog and just dust above the subject. In addition, the higher the resolution and the closer the satellite is to the Earth’s surface, the at the same swath of his shooting and less opportunity to look around. That is, it is advisable to use such survey only for previously explored objects, in clear weather, and only at a time determined by the orbit of the device.

That’s why the American military pays the American businessmen because they don’t have enough of their own technical means, and it’s easier to buy the necessary images than to create a bunch of satellites, each costing the same as an aircraft carrier.

And in order to imagine the quality of images in different resolutions, I have prepared an approximate diagram based on

The photo shows a glacier located on the Kenai Peninsula, along the Gulf of Alaska, which is 240 kilometers long. Photo taken from satellite on August 8, 2005. This image shows ablations—a reduction in the mass of a glacier due to melting and evaporation, depending primarily on climate factors. Dark streaks on the surface of the glacier it is mud flowing from the rocks.

South of Khartoum we see irrigated fields that stretch across El Gezira (one of Sudan's 15 states). This photo was taken by NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflectance Radiometer (ASTER) satellite on December 25, 2006.

Far away in the Sahara Desert there is this crater, which appeared hundreds of millions of years ago even before the first dinosaurs appeared on Earth. It is an almost perfect circle that is 1.9 kilometers wide and 100 meters high. Modern geologists have long debated the cause of this crater; some believe that it was formed due to the activity of a volcano.

Cloudless skies allowed for a clear image of Tibet from a NASA satellite. In the photo we see snow caps on some mountain peaks and ice partially covering the lakes.

The image from space shows the outline national park, located in the southern part of Tunisia (a state on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa), near the Libyan border.

Two cyclones were spotted from space south of Iceland, an island nation located in the northern part of Atlantic Ocean(northwest of Great Britain).

Even in the snowiest places, such as, there are valleys without snow (between the Ross Sea and East Antarctica). Such valleys are called Dry. Cold, dry air flows through them, rolling downhill towards the sea from high altitudes of the ice sheet.

The large desert of Dasht-e Lut, located in the southeast of Iran, extends approximately 480 by 320 kilometers. This area is made up of sand, which in some places creates some of the tallest dunes in the world (300 meters high).

Akimiski Island is the largest island in James Bay (Canada). The length of the island's coastline is 261 kilometers. The island is currently uninhabited; the vegetation there includes lichens, mosses, grasses and dwarf black spruces. The photo was taken from satellite space on August 9, 2000.

The photograph shows the Bird Glacier in Antarctica, which is 136 kilometers long and 24 kilometers wide. It originates in the vast polar plateau and moves at a speed of 0.8 kilometers per year to the east, eventually flowing into the Ross Ice Massif. Named after the American Antarctic explorer Admiral Beard.

Rub al-Khali (“desert quarter of the world”) is a vast sandy desert in the Middle East, occupying 650 thousand square meters. kilometers in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, located on the territory of the states of Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE and Yemen.

Detailed image from Taiwan's Formosat-2 satellite of ice shelves (floating or partially resting on the bottom) on the Antarctic Peninsula. The level of detail in the photograph is so great that huge icebergs (several hundred meters in length) appear to be just small floes of ice.

A view from space of a dry river bed in the mountains in the southeastern province of Fars, Iran. A wide belt of agricultural land stretches along the road.

Tropical Cyclone Billy off the coast of Western Australia.

Colorful blooms of phytoplankton (the part of plankton that can carry out the process of photosynthesis) throughout the Black Sea near the Turkish cities of Sinop and Samsun.

Image of a forest in the northern Republic of Congo (a state in Africa) with muddy logging roads (orange lines).

View from space of the Harrat Khaybar volcano in Saudi Arabia. Its height is 2093 meters. A huge basalt plateau (about 200 kilometers), consisting of numerous cones.

Dust settles to the north coast of Libya (a state in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast).

Active stratovolcano St. Helens (Mount St. Helens), located in Skamania County, Washington State, USA. The photo shows lush green forests to the south of the mountains and sparse vegetation to the north.
A stratovolcano is a type of volcano that has a conical shape and is composed of many layers of solidified lava, tephra and volcanic ash.

The houses and streets of bustling Las Vegas, Nevada, are visible in this photo from space.

Sunset on the Amazon River, South America.

This is what the northern coast of Iceland (a state located in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean) looks like from a satellite.

Clouds surround a high mountain with the long-extinct Elgon volcano in Africa. It is located on the border of Kenya and Uganda, surrounded by tropical forests and bamboo thickets. Its height is 4321 meters.

New cards Google Maps

Every few months Google updates satellite google maps Maps and Google Earth, adding new satellite photos and improving processing methods. For example, three years ago the company learned how to create a cloudless mosaic of the sky.

New photos only improve the quality satellite photographs of the middle and general plan(zoom from 0 to 12), but not the most detailed photographs of cities at maximum zoom that other private and government satellites provide, including from DigitalGlobe.

Despite this, the difference in quality is amazing.

Columbia Glacier in Alaska

City of Detroit, USA (north and west of the river)

Swiss Alps

Landsat 8's suite of instruments is much more advanced than Landsat 7's - and this is immediately evident in the photographs, which have better detail, more rich colors. In addition, Landsat 8 has an unprecedented image update rate: every day it captures almost twice the area than Landsat 7 (400 scenes per day for Landsat 8 versus 250 scenes per day for Landsat 7).

Google admits that everything last years compiled a mosaic of satellite maps only from Landsat 7 photographs, which, after a hardware failure in 2003, began sending low-quality data - photographs with large diagonal white stripes. For example, this is what photographs of the same area in the American city of Oklahoma City look like in 2000 and 2003.

Oklahoma City, July 9, 2000

Oklahoma City, September 20, 2003

Photos with such stripes are more difficult to glue into a single mosaic.

For processing we used standard software interfaces Earth Engine API, also available to third party researchers. The same APIs were used by scientists to create interactive maps of changes in the planet's forest cover and maps of the risk of malaria spread.

Mosaic of our entire surface Google planet compiled from Landsat 8 photographs total volume approximately 1 petabyte, cumulative resolution 700 trillion pixels. For comparison, this number of pixels is about 7,000 times more than the estimated number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, or 70 times more than the estimated number of galaxies in the Universe.

For gluing 1 petabyte Google photos it took more than 6 million hours of processor time: the task was calculated for almost a week on a cluster of 43,000 computers in the Google computing cloud.

Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan

Brasilia city, Brazil

WITH today new satellite photos are open in all cartographic Google products, including on satellite Google layer Maps.

Many users would like to enjoy satellite photos of their native places, to see their house, a nearby river or forest from above, in a word, everything that is commonly called “small Motherland”. A tool for realizing this desire can be satellite mapping services that provide unique opportunity viewing in detail graphic mode all required geolocations. After my attempts to look at my home online from a satellite, I found really high-quality services and in this article I will share my experiences.

There is a huge variety of mapping services on the network that provide the user with access to satellite maps high resolution. At the same time, the vast majority of such services use the API from Google Maps, and only a few services (including the domestic Yandex.Maps) can boast of their own cartographic developments that differ from the dominant Google maps in this segment.

At the same time, working with such cards is quite formulaic. You go to one of them, turn on satellite display if necessary, and then enter your address into the search bar ( locality, street, house number). After this, the service finds the required location, and you can use the mouse wheel to increase or decrease the existing display. If the service for some reason does not find your house, I recommend entering the name of the city (town, village) and street, and then find the right house independently using the mouse.

At the same time, some services allow you not only to see your house from above, but also to walk along the streets hometown, and enjoy the view of the buildings we need up close.

Let's move on to the list of services that will help us see our home from satellite.

Google Maps - look at your home from satellite in real time

The most popular global mapping resource is undoubtedly Google Maps. In addition to maps presented in schematic and satellite form, the service also includes the ability to 360° view the streets of many cities around the world (Street View). Information about street traffic and traffic jams (Google Traffic), route planner from point A to point B, 3D display of many geographical points, other useful features.

There are two main options to view your home:

Yandex.Maps - will allow you to see the necessary object in Russia

Another mapping service with which you can enjoy the view of your home is Yandex.Maps. This service is the most popular in Russia, since the level of display of the territory of Russia and the frequency of updating data in the Russian Federation exceeds all existing analogues, including the generally recognized maps from Google.

Like the Google Maps service, Yandex.Maps can boast of both standard and satellite display of maps (as well as the “Hybrid” mode, which involves applying various text and schematic markings on a satellite map). In addition, users have access to a street display mode (“Yandex.Panoramas”), a traffic congestion indicator (“Yandex.Traffic”), as well as the “People’s Map” crowdsourcing system, which can be edited by any user.

To view your home using Yandex.Maps, go to the resource, enter your address in the search bar at the top, and press enter. To switch to street view mode, click on the button with binoculars at the bottom of the screen (street panoramas and photographs). And then select one of the streets marked in blue (you will switch to the street view mode at this point, and you will be able to enjoy the color of these places).

Bing.Maps – satellite map from Microsoft

"Bing.Maps" is a network mapping service from Microsoft, formerly known as " Windows Live Maps" and "MSN Virtual Earth". Its capabilities include satellite mapping, street view, 3D mapping for 60 cities around the world, laying optimal route and other features that are typical for services of this type.

To watch your home using Bing.Maps, go to the specified service, click on “Road” on the right, and select “Hybrid View”. Then enter the address you need into the search bar and view the view that opens.

MapQuest is a popular American mapping service

"MapQuest" (translated as “Card Search”) is a free American mapping service, the second most popular in the United States after Google Maps. The resource boasts a high degree of detail on the streets of many countries around the world, will help you plot a convenient route, inform you about existing traffic, and much more.

To work with it you need to go to this resource, click on the button with the image globe on the right (Satelite), which will allow you to switch to satellite display mode. After that, in the search bar on the left, enter the address you need (preferably in Latin), and enjoy displaying the desired location using the MapQuest service.

Conclusion

You can view your home from satellite using the services I listed in this material. For the territory of Russia, I would recommend the Yandex.Maps service - the level of detail and frequency of updated data inspires us to consider maps from Yandex the best mapping service on the territory of the Russian Federation. On a global scale, the Google Maps service is the undisputed leader, so it would be optimal to use the tools of this service to display maps of many countries around the world.

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