The shape of a hummingbird in NISAR satellite data is actually the top of a mountain seen in Antarctica. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
In satellite data taken over Antarctica, what appears to be a beautiful, colorful hummingbird emerges from the ridge of a mountain peak.
What is it?
While there are no hummingbirds flying around Antarctica, we can see what appears to be a small purple bird in a new satellite image of an Antarctic mountain. The dark belly of this “bird” in the center of this image is actually the summit of Lost Mountain Nunatak in East Antarctica.
What appears to be a bird’s tail is actually a stream of ice flowing northeast all the way to the ocean, and what appears to be feathers protruding outward from the top of the mountain are actually cracks at the bottom of the mountain. These cracks are caused by a glacier breaking up the surface of a mountain as it flows in an ice stream toward the ocean.
This image was captured by radar instruments on board the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Radar Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite, which was launched as a collaboration between NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization). At a pre-launch briefing last year, the director of NASA’s Earth Science Division called NISAR “the most sophisticated radar we’ve ever built.”
Why is this incredible?
At first glance, this image is puzzling. What could it be? Its bold colors and sharp lines evoke an almost alien quality. But the strange beauty of the shapes and colors in this satellite image reveals important information about the movement of glaciers on the mountain.
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“Firstly, it is a beautiful image with a rich amount of detail that gives an idea of how the glacier is moving. Then, because radar can often see through snow and deep into ice, NISAR can observe fundamentally different properties of Antarctic ice than those seen in optical images,” Seongsu Jeong, a signal analysis engineer who created the image at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. “With NISAR, we see what’s beneath the surface.”
And now anyone can study NISAR data. Earlier this week, on July 20, NISAR began publishing data from its radar instruments. Going forward, mission teams will distribute this data so that researchers around the world can use it to study and protect our ever-changing planet.
