SanFrancisco

San Francisco, California

This image of San Francisco, California shows how the radar
distingishes between densely populated urban areas and nearby areas
that are relatively unsettled.  Downtown San Francisco is at the
center and the city of Oakland is at the right across the San
Francisco Bay. Some city areas, such as the South of Market, called
the SOMA district in San Francisco, appear bright red due to the
alignment of streets and buildings to the incoming radar beam. Various
bridges in the area are also visible including the Golden Gate Bridge
(left center) at the opening of San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge
(right center) connecting San Francisco and Oakland, and the San Mateo
Bridge (bottom center). All the dark areas on the image are relatively
smooth water: the Pacific Ocean to the left, San Francisco Bay in the
center, and various reservoirs. Two major faults bounding the San
Francisco-Oakland urban areas are visible on this image. The San
Andreas fault, on the San Francisco peninsula, is seen in the lower
left of the image. The fault trace is the straight feature filled with
linear reservoirs which appear dark. The Hayward fault is the straight
feature on the right side of the image between the urban areas and the
hillier terrain to the east. The image is about 42 kilometers by 58
kilometers (26 miles by 36 miles) with north toward the upper
right. This area is centered at 37.83 degrees north latitude, 122.38
degrees east longitude. The image was acquired by the Spaceborne
Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture (SIR- C/X-SAR) imaging radar
when it flew aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on October 3,
1994. SIR-C/X-SAR, a joint mission of the German, Italian and the
United States space agencies, is part of NASA's Mission to Planet
Earth.

P-45881 July 20, 1995