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November 18, 1994 Rabaul, Papua New Guinea L,C
bands
This is a radar image of the Rabaul volcano on the island
of New Britain, Papua New Guinea taken almost a month after its
September 19, 1994, eruption that killed five people and covered
the town of Rabaul and nearby villages with up to 75 centimeters
(30 inches) of ash. More than 53,000 people have been displaced
by the eruption. The image was acquired by the Spaceborne Imaging
Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) aboard the
space shuttle Endeavour on its 173rd orbit on October 11, 1994.
This image is centered at 4.2 degrees south latitude and 152.2
degrees east longitude in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The area
shown is approximately 21 kilometers by 25 kilometers (13 miles
by 15.5 miles). North is toward the upper right. The colors in
this image were obtained using the following radar channels: red
represents the L-band (horizontally transmitted and received);
green represents the L-band (horizontally transmitted and vertically
received); blue represents the C-band (horizontally transmitted
and vertically received). Most of the Rabaul volcano is underwater
and the caldera (crater) creates Blanche Bay, the semi-circular
body of water that occupies most of the center of the image. Volcanic
vents within the caldera are visible in the image and include
Vulcan, on a peninsula on the west side of the bay, and Rabalanakaia
and Tavurvur (the circular purple feature near the mouth of the
bay) on the east side. Both Vulcan and Tavurvur were active during
the 1994 eruption. Ash deposits appear red-orange on the image,
and are most prominent on the south flanks of Vulcan and north
and northwest of Tavurvur. A faint blue patch in the water in
the center of the image is a large raft of floating pumice fragments
that were ejected from Vulcan during the eruption and clog the
inner bay. Visible on the east side of the bay are the grid-like
patterns of the streets of Rabaul and an airstrip, which appears
as a dark northwest-trending band at the right-center of the image.
Ashfall and subsequent rains caused the collapse of most buildings
in the town of Rabaul. Mudflows and flooding continue to pose
serious threats to the town and surrounding villages. Volcanologists
and local authorities expect to use data such as this radar image
to assist them in identifying the mechanisms of the eruption and
future hazardous conditions that may be associated with the vigorously
active volcano.
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Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR)
is part of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. The radars illuminate
Earth with microwaves, allowing detailed observations at any time,
regardless of weather or sunlight conditions. SIR-C/X-SAR uses
three microwave wavelengths: L-band (24 cm), C-band (6 cm) and
X-band (3 cm). The multi- frequency data will be used by the international
scientific community to better understand the global environment
and how it is changing. The SIR-C/X-SAR data, complemented by
aircraft and ground studies, will give scientists clearer insights
into those environmental changes which are caused by nature and
those changes which are induced by human activity. SIR-C was developed
by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. X-SAR was developed by the
Dornier and Alenia Spazio companies for the German space agency,
Deutsche Agentur fuer Raumfahrtangelegenheiten (DARA), and the
Italian space agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), with the
Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fuer Luft und Raumfahrt e.v.(DLR),
the major partner in science, operations and data processing of
X-SAR.
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