Code name "Corona": The earliest spy satellite images revealed the secrets of the ancient Middle East.

By mapping historical spy satellite images to recent aerial photos, researchers can find historical sites that disappeared decades ago. When the United States launched its first secret "spy satellite" in the 1960s, the camera on the satellite captured an unprecedented scene on the earth's surface. Although these decrypted images have been used to reveal the key military secrets of American enemies, they have recently found a new use: to provide archaeologists with an important window to understand the past.

Scientists are using satellite photos of the Middle East decades ago to reconstruct archaeological sites that have disappeared for many years. June 5438+February last year, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) that the past was erased by urbanization, agricultural expansion and industrial growth. By comparing these "spy" images with recent satellite photos,

Scientists can trace the settlements and historical sites that were later covered, or researchers can explain on AGU that they were destroyed. [Mind control cat? 6 incredible spy technology]

A free online application can correct the image distortion in the satellite camera system, which makes it easier than ever to analyze these photos. Jackson Coatalen, a professor and researcher in the Department of Geology at the University of Arkansas, is the head of the image correction project. According to the archives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), this satellite was planned to be formed in the late 1950s, led by experts from the US Air Force and the CIA, and code-named "Corona".

Corona, a space spy, photographed almost the whole earth, but his main goal was photographic surveillance-mainly the people of the Soviet Union and China. From 1960 to 1972, Corona took every photo that covered the ground on average 10 miles by 120 miles (16 kilometers by 193 kilometers). According to the National Reconnaissance Bureau (NRO), the project collected more than 800,000 photos declassified by President Bill Clinton at 1995 and made them available to the public through the US Geological Survey.

However, there is another problem that prevents the decrypted photos from being easily viewed. Cortland said that because Corona's stereoscopic panorama camera took large-area photos with very high resolution on long film, it is very challenging to correct the spatial distortion in the photos in order to draw these photos; The resulting image is similar to "a huge bow on the ground". The researchers said on AGU that no commercial software can effectively solve this distortion. In order to accomplish this task, they developed a free network tool, which they called "sunspot", and anyone can use it to upload and adjust corona images. Kotlun said that the sunspot will produce a modified file that can be inserted into the drawing software. Kotlun said that researchers used sunspots to create a corona map, which is a database for correcting corona images for scientific use.

Archaeologists are particularly interested in the images of the corona in the Middle East, because this historically important region has undergone tremendous changes since the 1960s. Cotoren said that thanks to the Corona Atlas, scientists were able to rediscover the "lost" ancient settlements; Since the start of the project, the number of archaeological sites mapped in the Middle East has increased by about 100 times.

"We have drawn thousands of sites-the Bronze Age and the Roman Age. We classified them to help landscape archaeologists understand the distribution of population over time, "he added.

Emma Menio, a geological researcher and doctoral student at the University of Arkansas, told Field Science that the corrected corona images can also be used to track landscape changes caused by climate change, such as the Arctic drainage pattern formed by the melting of permafrost.

"Arctic warming has been amplified in the past 30 to 40 years," Meniaud said. Having historical images like the corona-and other images of that period-allows us to establish a baseline so that we can observe the landscape before it starts to change rapidly.

Flying saucer to brain control: 22 declassified military and CIA confidential photos: top secret, the top ten most outrageous military experiments in Greenland during the Cold War, and original articles on life science.