NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have publicly released the first radar datasets from the joint NISAR satellite on July 20, 2026.
The high-resolution Earth observation data includes detailed imagery of Antarctic ice formations that resemble a hummingbird.
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The data release comes ahead of the first anniversary of NISAR's launch on July 30, 2025, from India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
Public users can access L-band data through NASA's archive and S-band data via ISRO's Bhoonidhi portal.
NISAR is the world's first satellite equipped with complementary dual-frequency L-band and S-band radar instruments.
It features a 39-foot drum-shaped reflector antenna, scanning nearly all global land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days.
NASA highlighted that the radar imagery provides clear insights into remote geographic structures that optical cameras cannot capture.
The agency released an image of Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja, a mountaintop in East Antarctica surrounded by moving glacier ice.
"Despite its otherworldly quality, the Antarctic image shows a very real geographical feature called Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja, a mountaintop in East Antarctica, poking out amid a stream of ice flowing northeast to the ocean," NASA stated.
As the glacier moves past the mountain peak, mechanical stress fractures the surrounding ice into deep crevasses.
These structural features create distinct visual patterns in the processed microwave radar data.
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"The 'hummingbird' exemplifies one of the young mission's hallmarks, intricately detailed imagery that is both informative and eye-catching," NASA said in a news release.
