{"id":588883,"date":"2026-08-10T12:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/588883\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T12:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:24:11","slug":"space-satellite-captures-remarkable-image-of-huge-magenta-green-hummingbird-covering-antarctic-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/588883\/","title":{"rendered":"Space satellite captures remarkable image of huge magenta-green \u201chummingbird\u201d covering Antarctic ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA has released an image of a vast section of Antarctic ice \u2013 and you\u2019re not going to believe what can be seen on the surface. Engraved into the ice is what appears to be a massive, highly detailed hummingbird rendered in magenta and green colors.<\/p>\n

The image was captured by NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), a joint US-Indian space agency (ISRO) satellite that monitors the movements of Earth\u2019s land and ice masses.<\/p>\n

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This device, which orbits roughly 450 miles above the surface of the planet, creates imagery by shooting radar waves at the Earth and then measuring the travel time, strength and direction of the returning signal. This enables scientists to determine the lay of the land, who assign different colors to the varying topography.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFirst, it\u2019s a beautiful image, with rich details of features that provide insights to how the glacier is moving,\u201d said Seongsu Jeong<\/a>, the NASA signal analysis engineer who produced the image.<\/p>\n

Jeong explained that scientists are able to see what\u2019s \u201chidden beneath the surface\u201d thanks to NISAR\u2019s radar, which can pierce through snow and deep into the ice.<\/p>\n

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Image 1 of 2<\/p>\n

\"Satellite<\/p>\n

The annotations point out the sharp green lines that indicate ice fractured with crevasses. Magenta represents more regular surfaces, such as smooth ice<\/p>\n

(Image credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech)<\/p>\n

Without NISAR, the observed region of Antarctica would simply look like a barren white wilderness (picture two). <\/p>\n

\"Satellite<\/p>\n

Because microwaves can penetrate frozen surfaces, signals from NISAR\u2019s L-band radar captured more detail of the structure of the surrounding icescape than is visible in this optical image<\/p>\n

(Image credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech)<\/p>\n

\"Satellite<\/p>\n

\"Satellite<\/p>\n

According to NASA, what the image actually shows is a geographical feature called Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja (Russian for ‘lost mountain’), a mountaintop in East Antarctica, around which flows streams of ice toward the ocean.<\/p>\n

As the underlying glacier moves, the mountain\u2019s topography stresses the ice. This creates deep fractures, called crevasses, which show as sharp green lines in the image, while the unaffected, smooth ice shows up as magenta.<\/p>\n

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NISAR was launched in July last year and, since then, has captured a range of fascinating images, including urban street grids<\/a>, agricultural fields<\/a>, landslides<\/a>, earthquakes<\/a>, and sinking land in Mexico City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shortly before the satellite’s one-year anniversary, NASA and ISRO made access to NISAR\u2019s data public, with teams in the US and India releasing files from the powerful radar instruments on an \u201congoing basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can access the ISRO data via the Bhoonidhi portal<\/a>, while NASA releases NISAR data – which it calls \u201cdata products\u201d \u2013 via the Vertex Data Search<\/a> and Earthdata Search<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s our pick of the best cameras for astrophotography<\/a>. The list is curated by Jamie Carter, our on-staff astrophotography expert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA has released an image of a vast section of Antarctic ice \u2013 and you\u2019re not going to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":["post-588883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}