Resolution Comparison
Reading License Plates and Headlines
With a resolution limit of about 10 centimeters, imagery intelligence satellites cannot read license plates or headlines, nor can they see golfballs.
Imagery collection from some aerial systems, which might readily achieve a resolution of three centimeters, could probably detect a golf ball, and detect but not reliably read the largest full-page headlines of a tabloid newspaper.
A resolution of about one centimeter would reliably read such unusually large headlines but would still fail to resolve license plates or normal headlines.
10 centimeter resolution
3 centimeter resolution
1 centimeter resolution
0.10 centimeter resolution
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/resolve5.htm
Created by John Pike
Maintained by Webmaster
Updated Tuesday, December 30, 1997 10:19:25 AM