According to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 180 thousand people go missing in Russia every year. Most of them are found, and the reason for their disappearance is usually a banal loss of contact with loved ones for various reasons. For example, some people go to another city, lose their phone and cannot contact their friends. Usually, relatives of missing people immediately contact the police and also post ads on the Internet. If a person gets lost in the forest, groups of volunteers are engaged in searching for him. In large areas, people are sometimes searched for using helicopters and other aircraft. And why shouldn't rescuers search for people using satellites? After all, they film even the most remote corners of our planet!
There are several reasons why missing people are not searched for with the help of satellites. Image source: spacenews.com
How Missing People Are Searched for
Usually, the police and rescuers organize and manage the search for missing people. Volunteers also often join the search – there are many organizations that collect information about missing adults and children, and then send out announcements on social networks. If the search is conducted in the mountains and other difficult terrain, climbers, divers and other specialists join the case.
Sniffer dogs, which can find people by their smell, often help in the search. Rescuers are trying to teach other animals to search – for example, in 2021, information appeared about search rats. But all of these are just experiments, and dogs with a keen sense of smell are mainly involved in search operations.
Today, the Ministry of Emergency Situations employs about 300 dogs. Source: life.ru
To find a person in a large area, auxiliary devices and large equipment are used. For example, with the help of thermal imagers, it is possible to find people at night or in the middle of dense vegetation. Sometimes missing men, women and children are found by tracking their smartphone or other device with GPS. In especially serious situations, the search is carried out with the help of helicopters and drones.
But rescuers resort to all this only in emergency situations. Large-scale search operations are organized in the event of missing children or after emergency situations. And if a person simply does not get in touch, his location is often reported by eyewitnesses who stumbled upon missing person ads.
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How to find a person via satellite
As you can see, different technologies are used in search operations. But no one uses satellites that photograph the entire surface of the Earth. It may seem that you can find anyone using satellite images, but in fact this is not the case.
First of all, satellites cannot be used to find people because only some people have access to high-resolution photographs services.
Satellite images show people looking like ants. Source: satellitetoday.com
Secondly, most commercial satellites cannot take photos in a high enough resolution to show people in the images. For example, Google Maps receives images from Landsat satellites, which once found the largest crater on Earth. If you go to any service with online maps, you cannot see people on them because the resolution is too low. They are visible as dots at most, but it is impossible to recognize a person from them.
Another obstacle for satellites is that they are ineffective in bad weather conditions. They also cannot see through thickets of plants, dense buildings, and so on – there are too many obstacles. In addition, satellites do not photograph the Earth's surface in real time, the data may not be updated for years. Therefore, it is impossible to monitor constantly moving people via satellites.
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New generation satellites
However, the quality of satellite images is gradually improving. Recently, Maxar Intelligence demonstrated how good the quality of the Earth's surface is photographed by the new generation of WorldView Legion satellites. The images show the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento – the detail of the photos is high, but, again, the resolution is not enough to recognize people.
High-resolution image taken by a new generation satellite. Source: Maxar
The photos were taken by two satellites launched in May 2024. The company will launch four more satellites in the future, for a total of six. They are expected to be able to take high-quality images every 20 to 30 minutes. This will allow us to monitor rapidly changing areas of the planet, but WorldView Legion satellites will still not be able to search for missing people.
Satellite images of football fields. Source: Maxar
Satellite technologies will definitely not be used to search for people in the near future. And their use in the future is extremely unlikely, because it is unlikely that anyone will open access to updated images for everyone – this will violate people's privacy.
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But surveillance cameras, which are installed even in small towns, often help find missing people. They shoot in a high enough resolution that you can see faces in the recordings. By tracking the route and interviewing eyewitnesses, you can find both missing people and criminals.