Questions tagged [satellite-oddities]
Questions about peculiar features seen on satellite imagery such as Google Earth.
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What are these large yellow areas in Kazakhstan?
I was exploring Kazakhstan in Google Maps satellite mode and these yellow areas caught my eyes:
There are numerous lookalike lands when you zoom back.
First I thought these are small deserts because ...
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What are these lighted shapes on Google Maps?
I was surfing on Google Maps satellite mode and I found these odd objects in northern Bolivia. They look like turned-on TVs, but the largest of them has a length of about 48 yards!
Can anyone identify ...
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Are the images of city lights from GOES-East GeoColor based on real-time imagery?
Are the images of city lighting portrayed on these shots from the GOES-East CONUS satellite based on real-time imagery?
This time-series was taken as the line of nightfall swept from east to west ...
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Bright patterns in the Dry Andes
I am doing some preliminary research on aeolian/nival landforms in Andes and I came across this:
located at -24.950948, -68.268528 and other locations throughout the Argentinian Dry Andes. Any idea ...
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What are these features on Eldon Hill?
Eldon Hill is a limestone hill in Derbyshire, England. It has a large quarry on it's NW side and a natural pothole just to the south of it's peak. It also has the remains of lead mines scattered ...
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What are these undersea lines all around Hawaii?
On Google Earth, there are these radiating undersea lines all around Hawaii:
Here with a bit more contrast:
Unlike the other lines, they are pointed away (or toward) a single place.
What are these, ...
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What are all those "spots" on the Mediterranean Sea floor?
This is the location. It is close to the French coast.
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What are these 'spine' land features on the banks of the Oder river?
Looking around on Google Maps, one can zoom in on the banks of the Oder river between Germany and Poland and find quite an extensive series of curious repeating land features along much of the river ...
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What is this long mark undersea
Visiting Google Maps, I came across this long, sinuous, while pretty regular mark undersea that looks like an ancient river, when the sea was way lower, or a big (big!) boulder that could have rolled ...
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What are these river/canyon-like carvings in the ocean?
Browsing around Google Maps, I came across this off the south-west coast of Ireland
It looks very consistent with the shape rivers and their tributaries might make, but it has me puzzled since it's ...
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What is this narrow band of clouds?
I came across a narrow streak of clouds in Asia when playing with Google Earth.
Does anyone know what that is?
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What are these underwater structures near 6°N 85°55'W
While google earth-researching the sea floor near Malpelo and Cocos Islands (Colombian and Costa Rican Pacific Ocean), I came along these strangely geometrical structures in the sea floor, located ...
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What are these radial line patterns shown in representations of antarctica?
In the video of the recent Iridium-6/GRACE-FO launch at about T+ 33:00 (curently at 49:00 in the video) the 2nd stage passes ...
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What are these clearings in Amazon rainforest?
I was surfing around on Google Maps and found dozens of clearings amid a sea of vegetation.
What are they? Some look like rocks, others can't be made out due to the image resolution.
Here is one ...
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What are these features in the Tombouctou Region?
I’ve recently been very interested in globe-trotting via Google Earth. At first I was using it to plan out hikes to possible mineral deposits locally, or potential fossils/ archeology sites. However I ...
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What produces these distinct shapes in the Rub' al Khali seen from space?
update: Searching "Rub' al Khali Empty Quarter" found "Q2: What are sabkhas?" in
https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC6BYQ0_rub-al-khali-the-empty-quarter which seems to be ...
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Large scale structures in the Sahara – what are they?
In Google Earth we can see some very clear lines in the Sahara. In the screenshot below you can clearly see these lines starting at the top going southward, then gently curving westward towards the ...
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What is the purpose of this large structure on a Japanese hillside? [closed]
A Google satellite view shows an unusual structure on a hillside in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan (Latitude 31.782600°N, Longitude 131.233881°E):
It measures about 170m by 120m and is structured in ...
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What causes these banded clouds?
A set of banded clouds can be seen in MODIS imagery during several days in January and February over the Gulf of Maine. They tend to occur with very cold winds from the NW following storms.
There are ...
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What are these lake-like blue patches in the desert, visible in satellite image?
I found some blue patches in the Arabian desert in Google Earth. It looks like as if they were lakes with sand dunes rising out of the water. But there isn't water in the desert, at least not this ...
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Why did people draw so many continuous squares in the sand on the beach at Cape Juby?
At Cape Juby, Morocco, we can see with Google Maps a rectangle of 3 km long, in which there is hundreds of little squares. What method was used to draw these squares on the sand? More importantly, why ...
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Glaciology: odd pattern of smooth and ribbed chunks of ice in Antartica
At -69.184611, -68.124276 (just east of the Bugge Islands) there is a triangular ice shelf. On satellite images (as seen on Google/Bing maps) you can see it is riddled with --for lack of a clearer ...
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