Texas This image of Houston, Texas, shows the amount of detail that is possible to obtain using spaceborne radar imaging. Houston appears in the upper right middle of the image, outlined and crisscrossed by freeways. North is toward the upper left.
Black areas are bodies of water.
The black rectangle with a white center that appears to the left of the city center is the Houston Astrodome. The radars illuminate Earth with microwaves allowing detailed observations at any time, regardless of weather or sunlight conditions. The multi-frequency data will be used by the international scientific community to better understand the global environment and how it is changing. SIR-C was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The above image has been rotated, cropped, and resized for clarity.