Courier Mail October 9, 2001, Tuesday
The world at your feet
LOOKING for a good view of the capital of Uzbekistan? The Web has become a gateway to an immense collection of satellite images of Earth, a place where you can zoom in on your favourite central Asian city or your own back yard in a couple of clicks.
Images of Antarctic icebergs, the desert in California's Death Valley and virtually anything else on Earth can be found at an array of websites, from government space agencies like NASA and private companies such as SPACE.com.
Easy access to images previously available only to the government is made possible, in part, by the Ikonos satellite, launched by a Colorado-based company two years ago. From its perch in space, Ikonos can make out objects as small as cars and trees. And because Ikonos is owned by a private company, there are no restrictions on the kinds of photographs it can take.
The easiest way to see a sampling of Ikonos images is to go to the website of the satellite's owner, Space Imaging (www.spaceimaging.com). In the gallery section, you can browse through clear, colour images of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon both before and after they were attacked. There are also pictures of such eclectic images as the production camp for hit reality TV series Survivor, the Indy 500 race, and Nikumaroro Island, where Amelia Earhart's plane may have crashed on her attempt to fly around the world in the 1930s. In another section of the Space Imaging site called QuickLooks, (www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/quicklook/default.asp) satellite photographs can be found of any county in any US state, as well as pictures of cities in any country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
The Ikonos satellite, named for the Greek word for "image", orbits the globe 14 times a day and can take a picture of the same spot on Earth once every three days. Ikonos can render objects as small as one square metre. Because there are no restrictions on which areas it can pass over, Ikonos can be hired to snap pictures of any place on Earth, including military sites and other sensitive areas.
One site, GlobalSecurity.org (www.globalsecurity.org) displays pictures of military bases, rebel camps, and other secret areas captured by Ikonos. But it should be said that US Government spy satellites are believed to have imaging capability much better than Ikonos.
TerraServer (www.terraserver.com) offers a combination of satellite images and aerial pictures of Earth. While the highest level of detail is available only to paid subscribers, interesting pictures can still be found.
At Visible Earth (http://visibleearth.nasa .gov/), you can see icebergs in Antarctica, plumes of ash streaming from Mt Etna in Sicily, and a spectacular infrared image of the Grand Canyon in the US.
Copyright 2001 Nationwide News Pty Limited
