ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Radar earth observation satellite

Have you ever played hide-and-seek and used your eyes to find your friends? Well, radars are like really good eyes that can see things even when they are far away or hidden.

Now imagine that you are playing hide-and-seek on a big field or even in a whole city. You would need more than just your eyes to find your friends this time, right? That's where the radar earth observation satellite comes in.

A radar earth observation satellite is a big machine that goes up into space and takes a lot of pictures using its radar eyes. But instead of taking normal pictures like your phone or camera does, it sends out special signals that bounce off the surface of the Earth and come back to the satellite.

Based on how long it takes for the signals to come back, the satellite can measure the distance and shape of different things on the Earth, like mountains, forests, oceans, buildings, and even cars and people!

So when scientists want to learn more about the Earth, like how it's changing over time, or where there might be natural disasters like earthquakes or floods, they can use the radar earth observation satellite to see things that humans can't see from the ground.

And that's how the radar earth observation satellite helps us understand our planet better, just like a really good set of eyes that can see everything from up above!