Word: radars
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Science, was a serendipitous success for the flight of Columbia in November 1981. That mission had to be cut from 124 hr. to 54 hr. because of a faulty fuel cell, but before aborting the flight, the astronauts were able to complete an experiment with the ship's radar equipment. They took a 50-km-wide scan of the Sahara from the shuttle. Radar waves generally penetrate only a few centimeters of the earth, since the beams are dissipated by moisture in the surface of land. But in the dry Sahara, the radar waves were able to pierce...
...U.S.G.S. Research Geologist Carol Breed, "showed us a topography that could only have been buried. There was no trace of it on the surface." Marvels the head of the eight-member group interpreting the pictures, John F. McCauley of the U.S.G.S.: "We were able to look through and use radar as a time machine...
...team that visited last September found the area so dry that cardboard boxes, cigarette papers and tracks left by the British army during World War II were perfectly preserved. Seeking signs of earlier inhabitants, the team dug at sites along the banks of hidden riverbeds shown by the new radar maps. Their findings: tools and other artifacts presumably used as long ago as 200,000 years by Homo erectus, one of modern man's ancestors...
Geologists believe that radar scanning will be valuable in detecting modern waterways lying near the surface in arid areas. "If you want to look for water in the desert," says Breed, "you would look for that type of site where ground water intersects the surface." For archaeologists, the technique may help determine sites of early human habitation near former rivers and lakes. And, by indicating telltale subsurface features, it may prove a boon for geologists surveying for oil and minerals...
Space officials are so excited by the radar technique that a follow-up mission for more sophisticated radar imaging has been approved for a shuttle flight in August 1984. Says J.P.L.'s Charles Elachi: "The plan is to concentrate and get much more coverage of the Sahara region." There is even talk of more radar missions to other planets. Radar pictures, which have already revealed some of the secrets under the clouds of Venus, may help scientists learn how planets developed. First choice would be Mars. The arid red planet's surface is etched with channels remarkably similar...