Only a few countries in the world have a pollution control along their coasts and are patrolling regularly using ship or aircraft. A new way of monitoring our Seas is space, from an orbiting satellite, such as the ERS satellites built and launched by the European Space Agency. The ERS satellites have a Radar aboard able to watch the Earth's surface at all times, even through clouds and in the night. Marine oil pollution is not only caused by accidents. In a radar image the ocean is not blue but black and white and also has a lot of strange features.
Ships appear as bright points.
It is not merely a wake, but that ship is obviously washing its oil tanks. An operation that pollutes our seas and therefore is illegal, at least in the Mediterranean Sea. This is the story. Early last spring, on a calm but misty day, the patrolling aircraft of the French Coast Guard observed a ship spilling oil. But at 10.17 GMT of the same day the ERS satellite passed as well.