NASA Searches for Missing Malaysian Aircraft From March 7th: New Tech May Reveal Location

Last Friday, Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared into thin air shortly after takeoff. Search efforts thus far have been unsuccessful, but now NASA has jumped in to provide support for this ongoing mystery.

Earlier this week, NASA began figuring out ways it could provide support for the search of the missing aircraft. NASA spokesman Allard Beutel believes that some of the space agency's technology would be useful for the search, but they've been deciding this week exactly which instruments would be most effective.

Beutel believes that the Earth-Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite as well as the ISERV camera on the International Space Station could provide useful data and clear images for where the airline may have crashed.

"The resolution of images from these instruments could be used to identify objects of about 98 feet (30 meters) or larger," Beutel told Space.com.

The EO-1 mission "developed and validated a number of instrument and spacecraft bus breakthrough technologies designed to enable the development of future earth imaging observatories that will have a significant increase in performance," according to NASA.

The ISERV camera is a part of the SERVIR initiative, which "integrates satellite observations, ground-based data, and forecast models to monitor and forecast environmental chances and to improve response to natural disasters." In the case of Malaysian Flight 370, this instrument could be useful because it provides viewable earth observations, measurements, animations, and analysis that could reveal telling information as to where the plane crashed.

Last week, those in search of the flight found a twelve-mile-long oil slick on the surface of the Gulf of Thailand near Vietnam. So perhaps NASA's imaging instruments and technologies can provide information on or around March 7^th to help determine where the aircraft disappeared. Until then, this remains one of the more bizarre mysteries in recent history.

To read more about NASA joining the Malaysian Flight 370 search party, visit this Live Science article.