Thousands of web users are shifting through detailed satellite images on a website, searching for clues that may lead to themissing Malaysian aircraft. The satellite images are provided on Tomnod, a website operated by DigitalGlobe, a US-based firm that provides space imagery for commercial use.On Thursday, DigitalGlobe said that it was overwhelmed by the response it received. The volunteers are looking for small pieces of debris or objects that could be part of the missing aircraft. So far they have tagged over 6,00,000 features that stand out.While most of the features are normal in appearance and do not show any link to the missing plane, some needs a second look. According to CNN, within hours after DigitalGlobe activated uploaded the maps on TomNod, one web users found the silhouette similar to that of Boeing 777-200, the aircraft used by Malaysian Airlines for the flight MH370, in one satellite image. However, a closer look showed that it was likely a large boat.
More than 2 million people have tagged some 645,000 features so far, making this the largest Tomnod campaign in history by orders of magnitude. We have continually tasked our satellites to image the ever-widening search area and now have more than 24,000 square kilometres of imagery available for the crowd to comb through," DigitalGlobe said on its blog. "We will continue to collect imagery of the search area and adapt our collection plans as new information becomes available."Earlier, DigitalGlobe said that it had two satellites looking at the area where MH370 likely went down. "On Sunday, two of satellites collected imagery of the area where evidence suggested the aircraft may have crashed into the water, where the Gulf of Thailand meets the South China Sea. The spacecraft collected approximately 3,200 square kilometres of imagery that can now be analysed by the crowd using Tomnod platform," the company said.
This is second time DigitalGlobe has asked volunteers to pitch in for finding objects in its map. After Philippines was hit by Typhoon Haiyan, the company posted satellite imagery of the affected areas on Tomnod, hoping to gather clues about missing people and scale of destruction in the
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