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ESA captures oil spill images in Gulf of Mexico
The European Space Agency is proving useful to global accident monitoring once again with images captured on its Envisat satellite that show the extent of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The spill, which started on 22nd April after an oil rig exploded and sank off the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, USA, can be seen as a light grey whirl in the lower right hand corner of the image captured by Envisat. The Gulf coast of the USA can be seen stretching from the top left to top right of the image.
The images were requested by the US Geological Survey from the International Charter Space and Major Disasters, a collaborated set up by the ESA and French Space Agency, CNES, to enable satellite remote sensing to aid civil protection agencies in response to natural and man-made disasters.
The images – which seem to confirm reports that around 1000 barrels of oil a day are escaping from a damaged oil well 1.5 kilometres under the drilling rig, covering an area of around 77 kilometres long and 63 kilometres wide – were taken using Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar and Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer on 26th April.
For more information on the images, visit the ESA website.
Below: The image taken by the Envisat satellite, showing the oil slick as a light grey whirl near the bottom right hand corner of the image. The Gulf coast of the USA can be seen from left to right at the top of the image (Image: ESA)
Published: Tuesday, 27th April 2010 by Tom Freeman
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