Text for written translation. Remotely sensed images, including aerial photographs and satellite images are the new modern tools of geography

Remotely sensed images, including aerial photographs and satellite images are the new modern tools of geography. Geographers use the aerial photographs – pictures taken from above the earth – to study relationships involving peoples and places that are not easily seen from ground level. Aerial photographs of traffic patterns, for example, can be used for planning new highways. Aerial photographs even show features of the ocean floor. Because aerial photographs provide such accurate and detailed information, cartographers rely on them as a source of information when making maps. Most aerial photographs used to make maps are taken by cameras in high-altitude airplanes and are developed in strips of overlapping pictures. An instrument called a stereoscope converts a pair of overlapping aerial photographs into a three-dimensional view of the area.

Many of the satellites circling the earth have special sensors called multispectral scanners. These scanners record observations electronically and send them to ground stations. Computers than translate the data into electronic images, making false-color pictures. Even though the pictures are taken from far in space, they are so detailed that they can show houses or even sailboats on a lake.

In addition to globe, maps, and remotely sensed images, geographers use tables, charts, graphs, and diagrams to help them in their work. They also use computers to solve geographic problems as well as to make maps and graphics.