Dec 6 1996
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
Scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas revealed their discovery of an ancient river channel buried beneath the Sahara Desert in Africa, publishing their findings in Science magazine. The discovery offered an answer to a question that had long perplexed the scientific community, why does the Nile River, as it flows through the world's largest desert (in Sudan) make a huge, looping bend in its course? The Nile generally flows toward the north, except at the Great Bend's turning, where the river flows toward the southwest for more than 200 miles (320 kilometers). After this detour, the Nile resumes its course toward the Mediterranean Sea. The researchers had used the images taken by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR), which had flown with Shuttle Endeavour's Mission STS-59 in 1994, to study the ancient structures in the Precambrian rock, guiding the river's course. The SIR-C/X-SAR radar waves had penetrated the sand to reveal unseen structures, not visible without the satellite images. Diane L. Evans, SIR-C Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), called the discovery "one of the most exciting discoveries from the SIR-C/X-SAR mission to date." JPL was managing the program as a part of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth initiative.
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