#MalaysiaAirlines, #MH370, #PrayForMH370
NASA Ramps Up Jet Search in Distant Ocean
NASA said Friday that it will train
its space eyes on an area in the southern Indian Ocean that is a new
focus of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.
The
U.S. space agency has been searching through data acquired by its
satellites since a couple of days after the Boeing 777-200 disappeared
March 8. Spokesman Allard J. Beutel said cameras aboard the
Earth-Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite and the International Space Station
also have been used to acquire new images of possible crash sites.
Now, Beutel said, plans
are underway to train space-based assets on an area 1,500 miles
southwest of Australia where two objects were seen by an Australian
satellite. He did not say precisely what those assets might include but
said the effort to acquire imagery would begin “within the next few
days.”
The area is vast — 22,000 square
miles. A search by air and sea began Thursday, but the region is so
distant from land that aircraft can only spend a couple of hours there
before being forced to return. More aircraft and ships are expected to join the hunt over the weekend.
Beutel
said the cameras used so far by NASA could identify objects about 98
feet across or larger. The largest of the objects spotted by an
Australian satellite was said to be about 75 feet across.
NASA
is sending the data to the U.S. Geological Survey, which runs a system
for sharing such satellite information internationally in the event of a
disaster.
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