Advanced Weather Satellite Detects Search at South Korea Ferry Disaster Site

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Flares illuminate the sky as a South Korean Coast Guard ship sails to look for people believed to have been trapped in the sunken ferry Sewol in the water off the southern coast near Jindo, south of Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, April 22, 2014.

Image: Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press

By Andrew Freedman2014-04-28 18:00:22 UTC

The Suomi NPP weather satellite, which is part of NASA's next generation of earth-observing satellites, detected the nighttime recovery operations underway to find victims and survivors of the deadly ferry accident off the coast of South Korea.

According to the University of Wisconsin's satellite blog, a specialized light-sensitive instrument aboard the satellite picked up the bright lights of the nighttime search operations on April 22.

See also: South Korean Coast Guard Releases Dramatic Footage of Sunken Ferry

The instrument, known as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, or VIIRS, which is a scanning radiometer that collects visible and infrared imagery and radiometric measurements of the Earth, has also captured unique images of everything from Hurricane Sandy at night to the natural gas drilling boom in North Dakota.

Satellite image from the Suomi NPP satellite, showing the bright lights associated with overnight recovery operations for victims of the sunken ferry.

A series of long-delayed polar orbiting satellites slated to be launched starting in 2017 will have the VIIRS instrument aboard and the imagery above indicates the continued improvements of such earth-observing satellites. The VIIRS picks up various frequencies of infrared light that are not perceptible to the human eye — the fact that it detected the bright lights illuminating the ferry accident site may be unprecedented in the world of weather and climate satellites.

The VIIRS instrument was deployed for the first time in 2011, so scientists are still discovering the full extent of its capabilities. As it turns out, it can do a lot more than anticipated.

The ferry accident involved a ship known as the MV Sewol. It sunk on April 16, 2014, while traversing a waterway known for its swift and variable currents, leaving 188 dead with 114 missing. Many of the victims were high school students on their way to a class field trip to Jeju Island.

Topics: ferry disaster, korea, NASA, satellite, satellite image, Sewol, South Korea, Space, US & World, VIIRS, World