It's not explicitly stated but it seems that this island was not charted because the area it was in had previously been full of icebergs.
> On the satellite images analysed, the island could hardly be distinguished from the numerous icebergs drifting around in the immediate vicinity due to its ice cover.
My sort of childlike mental model of satelite imagery of the planet is that we've "covered" everything but does anyone know at what frequency we do get new satelite imagery for places like the antarctic (or, say, the dead middle of the atlantic ocean?)
I imagine that satelite imagery is a bit needs based but maybe every square meter of the earth is captured at least once a couple of months
(Not the same thing but am reminded of how despite the importance of the internet and undersea cables for fixing things, there are _very very few_ boats that can actually repair them. Maybe there aren't that many satellites pointing at some parts of the globe)
Around the poles is a bit of a blind spot in satellite coverage. The angle with which the satellite orbit is offset from an equatorial orbit is called the orbital inclination. Because the earth rotates under the satellite, a 0° orbit would give you perfect coverage of the equator and not much more, a 10° orbit would give you good coverage of a band around the equator, etc. The closer to 90°, the more coverage you get of the northern and southern latitudes.
Now there's a neat trick you can pull where you go into a special 98° orbit (so like a 82° orbit, but in the other direction). At that point the slight bulge of the earth twists your orbit around just so that for any given point on earth you always pass over it at the same time of day, giving you identical shadows. That's called a sun-synchronous orbit, and is obviously immensely helpful for optical observations. But those missing 8 degrees prevent you from observing extreme latitudes. Usually we don't care because not much is happening there anyways
Even satellites without optical instruments usually suffer from the same blindspot. For example if you look at the Starlink constellation almost all satellites only reach up to about the middle of Great Britain. Everything further North is only served by a much smaller number of high inclination satellites. And there don't seem to be any Starlink satellites going directly over the poles
> I imagine that satelite imagery is a bit needs based but maybe every square meter of the earth is captured at least once a couple of months
Probably, but likely not as thoroughly as you'd think.
The problem with most high-resolution imaging satellites is that they are not designed to work over the ocean. They can't track the Earth perfectly, so they use a lot of image processing to "unsmear" the images. These algorithms rely on tracking recognizable features moving across the frames. Which obviously fails with the ocean.
So you often get hilarious results with images of offshore drilling platforms or ships.
That being said, there are satellites specifically designed for ocean observation, so they likely won't miss something as big as a new island.
I watched a youtube vid recently (so use that to calibrate your bullshit detector here) that said there are a bunch of companies and even freely accessible satellites with Synthetic Aperture Radar covering the entire earth every 12 days.
Well, they often have pre-discoveries for astronomical stuff. Where they find whatever they just discovered already being on old photographs. Why would satellite pictures be any different?
Also, it’s Antarctica. Observation at the poles is patchy compared to elsewhere on Earth. Low satellite coverage, illumination issues, lack of incentives, etc. - and that’s just satellite and aerial ops, never mind boots on the ground.
I was in the Antarctic about a decade ago, and this was underscored for me when we went to visit an island which has had maybe 20 humans visit, total - only to find it wasn’t where any of the charts said it was - it was about 3 miles away.
Fortunately we could just see it, as we had fine weather - which, upon further reading, neither of the previous surveys could, which explains the error - they had gone by dead reckoning in the era before GPS.
> the scientists and ship's crew were surprised by the sudden appearance of an island that had previously only been marked as a danger zone on the available nautical charts.
There is definitely cursed pirates treasure on that island
This appears to be a relatively scientific institution and yet they don't use the internationally recognized unit of measurement the American football field. I have no idea how big this island is now.
It's a little cryptic, but I believe this passage
"slightly longer than the Polarstern with its 118 metres and about twice as wide"
tells us it's the size of two Polarsterns laid side by side.
I still don't know what that is in terms of football fields, I assume you mean United States and not Canada, but maybe someone else can help out as I've gone as far as I can.
What if this story took place on a planet where the inhabitants collectively decided to value at-all-costs economic growth over a sustainable ecosystem, resulting in a situation where they were losing over a trillion metric tons of ice per year and that is what caused the mysterious island to be revealed...?
Not a shooting star, but the tiny new island reminds me of this Tintin comic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shooting_Star
It looks like it is covered in guano, so it is going to be annexed by the USA soon [0].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano_Islands_Act
It's not explicitly stated but it seems that this island was not charted because the area it was in had previously been full of icebergs.
> On the satellite images analysed, the island could hardly be distinguished from the numerous icebergs drifting around in the immediate vicinity due to its ice cover.
I have no interest in finding islands, but it seems like it would be pretty easy to find icebergs that never move.
reading this I was wondering about this.
My sort of childlike mental model of satelite imagery of the planet is that we've "covered" everything but does anyone know at what frequency we do get new satelite imagery for places like the antarctic (or, say, the dead middle of the atlantic ocean?)
I imagine that satelite imagery is a bit needs based but maybe every square meter of the earth is captured at least once a couple of months
(Not the same thing but am reminded of how despite the importance of the internet and undersea cables for fixing things, there are _very very few_ boats that can actually repair them. Maybe there aren't that many satellites pointing at some parts of the globe)
Around the poles is a bit of a blind spot in satellite coverage. The angle with which the satellite orbit is offset from an equatorial orbit is called the orbital inclination. Because the earth rotates under the satellite, a 0° orbit would give you perfect coverage of the equator and not much more, a 10° orbit would give you good coverage of a band around the equator, etc. The closer to 90°, the more coverage you get of the northern and southern latitudes.
Now there's a neat trick you can pull where you go into a special 98° orbit (so like a 82° orbit, but in the other direction). At that point the slight bulge of the earth twists your orbit around just so that for any given point on earth you always pass over it at the same time of day, giving you identical shadows. That's called a sun-synchronous orbit, and is obviously immensely helpful for optical observations. But those missing 8 degrees prevent you from observing extreme latitudes. Usually we don't care because not much is happening there anyways
Even satellites without optical instruments usually suffer from the same blindspot. For example if you look at the Starlink constellation almost all satellites only reach up to about the middle of Great Britain. Everything further North is only served by a much smaller number of high inclination satellites. And there don't seem to be any Starlink satellites going directly over the poles
> I imagine that satelite imagery is a bit needs based but maybe every square meter of the earth is captured at least once a couple of months
Probably, but likely not as thoroughly as you'd think.
The problem with most high-resolution imaging satellites is that they are not designed to work over the ocean. They can't track the Earth perfectly, so they use a lot of image processing to "unsmear" the images. These algorithms rely on tracking recognizable features moving across the frames. Which obviously fails with the ocean.
So you often get hilarious results with images of offshore drilling platforms or ships.
That being said, there are satellites specifically designed for ocean observation, so they likely won't miss something as big as a new island.
I watched a youtube vid recently (so use that to calibrate your bullshit detector here) that said there are a bunch of companies and even freely accessible satellites with Synthetic Aperture Radar covering the entire earth every 12 days.
( https://youtu.be/UKLuei1CnZY )
Well, they often have pre-discoveries for astronomical stuff. Where they find whatever they just discovered already being on old photographs. Why would satellite pictures be any different?
Such a search could still be run to predict new islands before they are discovered in the same way?
Perfect place for the fortress of solitude!
Not if it's on a map anymore
Also, it’s Antarctica. Observation at the poles is patchy compared to elsewhere on Earth. Low satellite coverage, illumination issues, lack of incentives, etc. - and that’s just satellite and aerial ops, never mind boots on the ground.
I was in the Antarctic about a decade ago, and this was underscored for me when we went to visit an island which has had maybe 20 humans visit, total - only to find it wasn’t where any of the charts said it was - it was about 3 miles away.
Fortunately we could just see it, as we had fine weather - which, upon further reading, neither of the previous surveys could, which explains the error - they had gone by dead reckoning in the era before GPS.
> the scientists and ship's crew were surprised by the sudden appearance of an island that had previously only been marked as a danger zone on the available nautical charts.
There is definitely cursed pirates treasure on that island
I assumed that satellite data would have been enough to know if something was an iceberg or land - wild that new land is still being discovered!
Appears that nobody ever ran a search. Probably because everyone just assumed there was no new land to discover.
The satellite data persumably also needs to be purchased, the area is huge, and this island is relatively tiny.
I'm sure astronomy solves much harder "needle in a haystack" problems and we could probably use their methods
What are the gps coordinates? I want to look it up on Google Maps.
Generally somewhere around here:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/wy1PNDWcvP7h9d4j7?g_st=ic
I notice that this area isn’t fully imaged. Just around the known existing islands.
From the article: “The team will publish the exact position of the island once the naming process is complete”
Wonder if it'll be close enough to Greenland for the US (or others) to put a base on it? ;)
It is located on antarctic waters.
Thanks, misread that. ;)
> What are the gps coordinates?
You mean the latitude and longitude.
There are many ways of calculating a position beyond one particular GNSS system.
Peak HN comment
The burning question is whether or not it qualifies as a new DXCC entity.
This appears to be a relatively scientific institution and yet they don't use the internationally recognized unit of measurement the American football field. I have no idea how big this island is now.
In the words of the great General Washington, we use meters and kilometers for certain unpopular sports like swimming.
So for measuring an island, use of swimming units seems appropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk
It's a little cryptic, but I believe this passage "slightly longer than the Polarstern with its 118 metres and about twice as wide"
tells us it's the size of two Polarsterns laid side by side.
I still don't know what that is in terms of football fields, I assume you mean United States and not Canada, but maybe someone else can help out as I've gone as far as I can.
It's about a football field in both length and width. Little bit longer.
It shall be known as Football Field Island.
Is this the start of a Jules Verne novel? Really though super cool
Or something darker.. R'yleh where dead Cthulu lies dreaming is out there near Point Nemo too ;)
Or something even darker than that...
What if this story took place on a planet where the inhabitants collectively decided to value at-all-costs economic growth over a sustainable ecosystem, resulting in a situation where they were losing over a trillion metric tons of ice per year and that is what caused the mysterious island to be revealed...?
So basically Epstein island without the child sexual abuse?
Uncharted island found. Charted.
I think they should name it Islandy McIslandface.
Valuable real-estate, it wont have any tariffs!
Not until it has exports at least. After that they will need to allow a Trump hotel.
Dibs
Interesting, I would normally expect small islands like this to disappear.
Would be interesting if they find more info on the satellite images they are examining.
With ice off they may rebound (up) nigh perceptibly
That's right, I forgot about that!
How much would an island like that set me back?
If it's in the Antarctic, it may be covered by treaty, and not legal to own.