[cogitator]

The "blue" of the water looks awfully artificial. It's too consistent. And I'd assume that if color is used to show altitude in this radar image, that lakes would be different colors than the ocean, because of their altitude difference.

I don't know much about the SRTM, but since the water looks very flat, they may not have done anything with radar returns over water and simply analyzed the land data. (The Canadian RADARSAT gets the best radar data over the ocean for waves and ice.)

[narby]

What I understand is that there are some particular radar wavelenghts that penetrate water just fine. Makes good images of the bottom. The first spacecraft to do this was a JPL scientific mission sometime in the late 70's, early 80's. Forget the name. Was mounted on an Agena body.

It was a non-classified mission, and the first images came out showing the ocean bottoms, and these long cigar shaped thingies floating between the surface and bottom.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

The first images were relased, but someone quickly realized the national security component, and classified it quick.