Satellite Photos of N. Korean Explosion(low resolution, taken on 09/15)

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 09/15/04 | N/A

[dasboot]

Ping. Expert analysis?

[JustPiper]

Terrorism and sabotage against hydro-electric dams

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:mlnPW4Nsf1oJ:www.nupi.no/IPS/%3F/module%3DFiles%3Baction%3DFile.getFile%3BID%3D1143/+chinese+protecting+dams+against+terrorism&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Khurkris]

Smokin...BINGO!...We have a winnah!

II was not my mos but I worked pretty close with some of them a few times. Something appears to have cratered out the area btween the top road and the rifgeline toad. Its pretty shadowed but it looks like all topo features are no longer extant in the new photo. Due to the lack of visibility I can't asses the amount of cratering. But it looks like a soup bowl is now where there once was hilly terrain. I'd also say there is one hell of a lot of blast damage to the structures that once were in that area...a hell of a lot!

[ASA Vet]

Cloud shadow. There are a couple other examples in the same photo.

[ASA Vet]

Cloud shadow. There are a couple other examples in the same photo.

[Don W]

Quickie math lesson:

KILO = thousand, as in one thousand tons of TNT.

MEGA = million, as in one million tons of TNT.

Then there's giga, tera, on up to google (yes really), and it goes farther, but I'm getting tired.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Tiger, thank you for your ping to the Photos.

[Smokin' Joe]

Yep, its dark in there. As I said, it may be the light.

I did monkey with the pictures with ArcSoft Photo studio, and changed brightness and contrast. I got the ridge in the eastern depression and the east side road on the central N-S Ridge to come out pretty well. It appears also as if some of the terrain feature is present, but the buildings on the lighter photo appear to be gone.

That could be from other causes, not just catastrophic, as the images are 4 yrs apart if I can go by the dates.

Vegetation on the south slope of the westward extending ridge appears to be present, judging by the light areas, and assuming (always dangerous) that the vegetation did not grow in the light areas because of water, soil, of geological concerns there.

You would think any major explosion would either destroy or obscure that.

I wish there were better images, but I think you may be right.

Next time I'll play with the images first.

[Smokin' Joe]

See post 39. If you snag the image and really monkey with it, using photo enhancement software (play with brightness and contrast), I think ASA Vet may be right.

The images do not cover exactly the same area, either, and this lends to the initial appearance of a missing ridge finger. I didn't see the buildings, but those could have been moved/dismantled in 4 years.

Use your cursor to gauge the distance from the central ridge to the west (X number of cursor widths) and you'll see what I mean. Wish the resolution was better, but this is what we have.

Back to the drawing board....

[bert]

If you are building a nuclear device in a bunker far underground and it explodes, you have just conducted an underground test.

The resulting terrain changes become Earthwork or mountain removal.

[boris]

"area btween the top road and the rifgeline toad"

Those nuclear toads make you spell funny.

[Khurkris]

well...like I said...I was never an II...didn't even play one on TV....lol. I still am tempted to go with some of my initial readings. Another things...looking at how the shadows are falling

Seems like there should be other pics available on the net. There is a whole passle of sat photo's on the net now. Somebody must have diverted one ove this AO to scoop this. Check the French. Although those may be subscription sites. Will try to freepmail an image to you

[Khurkris]

whatta ya mean I smell funny...?

[JasonC]

Um, 1,000 tons is a kiloton, a megaton is 1,000,000 tons.

[JasonC]

Sorry, I don't see it. The picture margins are different - 9/26 goes farther to the left, showing more of the ridge seen in the lower left of the 9/15 photo. Other than that, no significant difference there.

Only one I noticed is in the last pair, on the right picture there is a white developed area in the middle right to left and about 1/3rd from the bottom, top to bottom. In the left picture, just a smudge at the same location.

[American_Centurion]

There is no visible change between the 9-15 and 9-26 images.

Dark areas are cloud shadows, and if you lighten the image using any photo editor program, it's clear that there are absolutely no differences in the terrain or town.

There is no proof here. Not saying that nothing strange happened, just that this images provide no proof of anything.

[Smokin' Joe]

should have been 28. If I could count, I'd be a enguinere.

[Smokin' Joe]

See post 28, I agree.

[finnigan2]

Since everyone seems to be guessing, my guess is that the North Koreans had a very large underground munitions dump in the area that went up. You know, given Stealth aircraft technology and the precision that is capable with GPS guided bombs, some dark and stormy night the US could have put a bunker buster right down the chimney of such a facility and any North Korean inquiry would have to label it a mysterious accident. Remember a few moths back there was a huge train explosion at a railway station in North Korea. It turned out that among the many dead was a group of eastern European rocket or nuclear scientists who were on the train on their way to some sort of employment or consultation meeting. Very odd - two unexplained huge explosions in under three months. Just food for thought.

[JasonC]

The only thing I am unsure about is whether that white area in the right side photo (bottom one) is a built up area, or just a sandy or salt-flat-ish dry creekbed. If the second of those, the difference between the two pictures may just be recent water flow related. A closer look at the white area alone might distinguish.