Chinese image of seabed, not surface?
At 2203 Z today, FE Hoppy quoted Pixie:
Quote:
According to various news sources (CNN & Daily Mail) - the debris and oil slick is in the area initially searched after the crash and is floating.
If that's the case, why wasn't it noticed before?
Who did the search?
Now I'm uncertain this comment is referring to the Chinese satellite pix set (@3 wavelengths?)--may due info overload reading most of the posts. But it's in context to mean that.
Is it possible the grey Chinese pix images the seafloor at a shallow depth and not the surface as seems to be assumed generally? The background surrounding the object(s) suggests current ripples on a sandy seafloor. In addition, a windrow seems to have been plowed up in direction of flight-- assuming onward w/o deviation and north at top of pix-- just ahead of the objects.
At this time of year, the sun at local noon would have been within 15-deg of the zenith. Has the image captured a sunlight reflection off of aluminum surfaces, perhaps the tail? Due surface curvature, the reflections would be smaller than the entire surface. Is the water sufficiently clear and shallow that, with image enhancement, this could happen? Do the pix have an associated date and time (particularly time) stamp?
It is fairly well known that aerial images looking straight down can show a overview which shows with some clarity what cannot be seen at all from directly on the surface. And, of course, the non-significant debris found may have-- indeed probably was-- been not at or even very near the aerial reporting point.
Does anyone know what visual/infrared frequencies the Chinese satellite might have used, and if one might have some water penetration ability? Or is it possibly a radar reflection image... or even one such processed to determine seafloor contours by measuring the exact elevation of the sea surface due to the gravity effects of exactly how high the solid seabed is? We all know that the seafloor is now mapped by this gravity effect; I just don't know what precision can be obtained.
Obviously the pix are rendered in false color. Is it possible different types of return in one frequency can be rendered in a second color scale? Or superimposed from another pix frequency? FWIW