ASF Corner Reflector

ASF Corner Reflector. [Alaska Satellite Facility]. , This corner reflector, owned by the Alaska Satellite Facility of UAF's Geophysical Institute, is named for its simple shape. Corner reflectors bounce the radar signal back to the sensor, creating a bright, identifiable pattern easily seen as a bright dot in the radar image. An array of corner reflectors is deployed in Delta Junction, Alaska, shown here. ASF staff use differential global positioning system, or GPS, to precisely locate each corner reflector deployed. They calibrate the radar images by matching the locations of these bright dots in the radar image to the GPS measurements., Synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, sensors on satellites and aircraft create high-resolution images of the Earth by bouncing radar signals off the Earth's surface. How the radar bounces, such as the polarization and the magnitude of the returning signal, provides a lot of information about the Earth to the scientists who use SAR data in their studies. Using observations on multiple orbits around the planet, SAR data can be used to observe changes on the Earth's surface ranging from features the size of continents to the size of a large paperclip., [Aerial photo caption reads] , At the Delta Junction calibration site located 150 km southeast of Fairbanks corner reflectors (marked in yellow) create bright spots visible on radar images.