Four Angles on the Appalachians

The picture at the left was taken with the MISR camera that points straight down. It shows the Appalachian Mountains in eastern United States. The three images to the right show exactly the same strip of land, taken by three of MISR's forward looking cameras, each pointed at a different angle (45.6 degrees, 60.0 degrees, and 70.5 degrees). As the slant angle increases, the camera looks through a thicker layer of atmosphere, and the whitish particles stand out more.

You can see how the angle makes the haze look worse. MISR uses this multi-angle technique to measure the amount of particle pollution in the air. These images help scientists understand how particles in the atmosphere interact with sunlight. They can see how much of the sunlight the particles reflect, scatter, absorb, or let pass through unchanged. This information will help scientists understand the how particle pollution affects Earth's climate.