Spy Photos
5. Soviet
Union, 1986
Imagery
taken by the French satellite SPOT marked the first use of commercial satellite
imagery by a news organization (ABC News) to independently confirm a major news story. This was significant
because the Soviets were denying that the nuclear accident at Chernobyl had
taken place. Satellite imagery, it was now clear, could show events and places
in countries where the news media was denied access. This is a combined
SPOT-Eosat image of Chernobyl; the red dot is a thermal signature revealing the
extreme heat of the reactor meltdown.