Nimrod Glacier and the Transantarctic Mountains from Biomass

ESA revealed the first stunning images from its groundbreaking Biomass satellite mission – marking a major leap forward in our ability to understand how Earth’s forests are changing and exactly how they contribute to the global carbon cycle.

While Biomass’ longwave length P-band radar can penetrate through the forest canopy, this novel radar can also offer opportunities to explore other aspects of our planet. The long wavelength of P-band means that it can also penetrate deep into ice and so is less affected by melt and snowfall on the ice surface, which can skew measurements from space. Biomass is expected to measure glacier and ice-sheet velocities in regions where surface-ice conditions are too variable for shorter wavelength synthetic aperture radars to provide accurate information.

This image, which shows a portion of the vast Antarctic Transantarctic Mountains with the Nimrod Glacier flowing into Ross Ice Shelf, indicates that this could be a possibility.

The image spans approximately 140 km along the Biomass satellite's flight path (length) and 50 km across in width, with north oriented to the bottom.

Read full story: Biomass satellite returns striking first images of forests and more