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Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

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41–50 of 55 posts

Re: Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

#41
post #8

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.

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?

Re: Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

#42
post #32
post #8

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.

Perfect place for the fortress of solitude!

Not if it's on a map anymore

Re: Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

#43
post #5

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.

> What are the gps coordinates?

You mean the latitude and longitude.

There are many ways of calculating a position beyond one particular GNSS system.

Re: Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

#44
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cou…

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 )

Re: Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

#45
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cou…

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

Re: Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

#46
post #43
post #5

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.

> 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

Re: Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

#47
post #8

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.

[dead]

Re: Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...?

That scenario is so unrealistic that nobody would be able to suspend their disbelief enough to get into it.
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