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Beijing China
SAR Orbit number: 39150
16 October 2002

This Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) multitemporal colour composite image is centred over the city of Beijing (bright area centre image), capital and largest city of China.

The image shows the urban area of Beijing spreading out in bands of concentric ring roads. Tian'anmen square is right at the centre of Beijing, and is directly to the south of the Forbidden City and to the east of Zhongnanhai. Running through central Beijing from east to west is the well known Chang'an Avenue. The city capital's airport is visible as a black "H" figure northeast of the city. The various colour patches dispersed throughout the image indicate cultivated agricultural fields.

The image is made of three ERS-2 SAR PRI (Precision Radar Image) images acquired on different dates and assigning a colour (RGB) to each date of acquisition.

Technical Information:

• Instrument: Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
• Dates of Acquisition: Red: 18 August 1999, Green: 16 October 2002, Blue: 09 June 1999
• Orbit numbers: 22617, 39150, 21615
• Instrument features: 25 meter resolution

Coordinates:

NE Lat/Long: N 40.44/ E 117.25
NW Lat/Long: N 40.62 / E 116.12
SE Lat/Long: N 39.53 / E 116.99
SW Lat/Long: N 39.71 / E 115.87