courtesy of NASA/JPL

Varietis of ice at the northernmost edge of the sea-ice pack in the Weddel Sea, off Antarctica, appear in the dark and light green in this image, taken in an experimental wide-swath mode called ScanSAR. The two clockwise-rotating features - eddies - play an important role in global ocean circulation and the trasportation of heat toward the poles. The image is the first wide-swath (240 kilometers, or 149 miles), multifrequency, multipolarization radar image ever processed, produced at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory by the Alaska SAR Facility's ScanSAR processor system.