Welcome to Echoes in Space!

The first Massive Open Online Course on Radar remote sensing.

This course is loaded with explanation videos, practical tutorials

– using exclusively free software and data –

and lots of interactive content.

We wish you an exciting and informative experience!

Ready?

Let’s get started!

This topic is designed as a warm up. Here you can get an overview of the basic principle of Radar systems, why it is important to have Radar satellites in space and you can learn about the European Copernicus program, providing users worldwide with free (Radar) satellite images since 2014.

What is Radar?

The acronym Radar stands for RAdio Detection And Ranging. It describes systems that are actively sending electromagnetic microwaves from a satellite or an aircraft. A radar antenna is receiving the echoes that are backscattered from the earth or ocean surface.

YouTube — The interactive video functionality has a bug, which lets the video run in a loop. We have reported this issue and it is fixed in the upcoming version of the H5P plugin. Thanks a lot for your patience. Just press pause once you’ve watched the video.

What are Microwaves?

Microwaves are electromagnetic radiation. Their wavelength can vary between a few millimeters up to one meter. In the electromagnetic spectrum they can be found between the longer radio waves and the shorter infrared waves.

NASA
The electromagnetic spectrum – microwaves