It may come as a shock that the depths of Earth’s oceans are more alien to scientists than the surface of the moon, 240,000 miles away in space.
But it’s true: With cameras and sensors, spacecraft have mapped lunar landscape features over the decades. Meanwhile, charting the ocean floor has presented its own daunting challenges. The intense water pressure found deep in the abyss can crush most equipment, and the seafloor is essentially hidden from view under miles upon miles of water, which absorbs light and becomes opaque. That makes direct observations especially difficult.
A new effort using data from a NASA-led satellite is helping to change that, providing one of the most detailed maps of the bottom of the world’s oceans ever created. The SWOT satellite, short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography, is a collaboration between NASA and its French counterpart, the Centre National d’Études Spatiales.
“This satellite is a huge jump in our ability to map the seafloor,” said David Sandwell, a geophysicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in a statement.
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