Space Radar to Scan Angkor Ruins

Until recently, researchers trying to study the ruins of Cambodia’s ancient city of Angkor were hindered by thick rain forests.

But data recently gathered by a space radar system developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena gave researchers images of the site that include what may be evidence of a previously undiscovered settlement.

“This technology has been made available exactly at the right time at the right place,” said John Stubbs of the World Monuments Fund.

The fund, a New York-based nonprofit organization that works to conserve historically important structures, is involved with groups from 11 other nations in exploring Angkor, a complex of more than 60 temples that was the spiritual center for the Khmer people for 800 years beginning in AD 802.

Archeological interest in the area has picked up in recent years after the end of civil war in Cambodia, Stubbs said from his New York office. The fund approached NASA after learning of the Space Radar Laboratory’s first flight last April.