NASA Radar to Study Hawaii's Most Active Volcano An airborne
radar developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif., has returned to Hawaii to continue its study of Kilauea
volcano, Hawaii's current most active volcano. The Uninhabited
Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, or UAVSAR, mounted in a
pod under NASA's G-III research aircraft from NASA's Dryden
Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., returned to Hawaii's
Big Island on Jan. 7. The one-week airborne campaign will help
scientists better understand processes occurring under Earth's
surface at Kilauea. UAVSAR uses a technique called
interferometry that sends pulses of microwave energy from the
sensor on the aircraft to the ground to detect and measure very
subtle deformations in Earth's surface. The radar will collect
data over Kilauea from an altitude of about 41,000 feet (12,500
meters). UAVSAR previously studied the region in January 2010
and May 2011. Those two sets of observations successfully imaged
the surface deformation cause