May 8, 2010
Image of the Day: RADARSAT Image of Gulf Oil Spill, 8 May 2010
Our friends at CSTARS just posted this stunning image. Taken by the Canadian-operated radar satellite, RADARSAT-2, it clearly shows oil slicks and sheen spread across a wide area in the Gulf of Mexico early this morning (May 8): We’ve added some analysis to help you armchair interpreters. Oil slicks look dark on radar images because the oil reduces the surface tension of the water, dampening (smoothing out) the small wavelets that normally roughen up the surface of the ocean. But any smooth water will look dark on radar, so not all dark patches are caused by oil.
