Nasa joins hunt for missing MH370

Nasa is helping to find Flight MH370 by looking at satellite
footage and at a camera on the International Space Station

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines MH370 has grown to such an extent that US space agency Nasa is now pitching in to help find the plane.

Nasa is looking at how it can contribute to the search by making use of its valuable space assets to search images of Earth from space.

"Activities under way include mining data archives of satellite data acquired earlier and using space-based assets, such as the Earth-Observing-1(EO-1) satellite and the ISERV camera on the International Space Station, to acquire new images of possible crash sites," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told Space.com.

"The resolution of images from these instruments could be used to identify objects of about 98 feet (30 metres) or larger."

Nasa is also going to send any data it finds that could be relevant to the missing airplane over to the US Geological Survey's Earth Resources Observations and Science Hazard Data Distribution System. The agencies collate and share information whenever the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters is activated.