Scatterometer

So imagine you have a basket full of marbles, and you spill them all over the floor. Now, you want to know how the marbles rolled and where they ended up.

That's kind of like what a scatterometer does, but instead of marbles, it uses radar waves to measure how rough or smooth the surface of the earth is.

When the radar waves hit the ground, they bounce back and tell the scatterometer how bumpy or flat it is. This information can help scientists figure out things like how much vegetation or water there is in an area, or how strong the winds are blowing over the ocean.

So a scatterometer is kind of like a fancy tool that helps scientists learn more about the earth's surface.