Egyptian pyramids found by infra-red satellite images

Is it me or does news like this throw anyone else into a frenzy of daydreaming for a short while: using my computer expertise to enhance infrared images to reveal hitherto unknown pyramids (combining images from multiple spectral bands, SIFT object detection), battling with corrupt local authorities and looters, digging for the pyramid (and unfortunately losing a few of the team when the tunnel gives in), deciphering the Old Egyptian hieroglyphs on the door (with some help from my hardy MBP and my custom linguistic text analysis tools, written in a mixture of C++, Perl, and Scheme), going in and getting stumped by an empty chamber, but wait, there's a small tunnel leading away, investigating it with a remote controlled Arduiono-based robot I control with my Android tablet (e.g. <a href="http://www.gizapyramid.com/hidden.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.gizapyramid.com/hidden.htm</a>) and awakening a long-sleeping evil force within. Then, the final battle to save Earth.<p>OK, back to a rainy day in Chicago and trying to understand Puppet.

A colleague of mine worked with Sarah Parcak (the researcher featured) and says: "They use standard satellite images taken by NASA and then apply various photoshop filters to those images to find subtle differences in the terrain. Egypt works great because the starting palette is so clean. They've tried the same technology in South America and haven't had as much success."<p>Not sure if this is the exact technique they are using in this article, but it's what we featured in an exhibit on Egypt he worked on.

My searching on this topic turned up this interesting book - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Remote-Sensing-Archaeology-Interdisciplinary-Contributions/dp/038744615X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Remote-Sensing-Archaeology-Interdiscip...</a><p>Seems like these techniques are going to radically change how we find new archaeological sites. Tech. project idea: Build some tools to help archaeologists learn and share from each other with this data. Build a world wide database of IR imagery just a few meters below the surface?

&#62;"These are just the sites [close to] the surface. There are many thousands of additional sites that the Nile has covered over with silt. This is just the beginning of this kind of work."<p>I am very curious as to what else they find through these excavations

It's fascinating how many relics of ancient civilisation are concentrated in that part of the world.<p>Many presenting puzzles yet to be solved.

Where does the soil to cover the pyramids come from? Those are not small structures, and you aren't just covering them - you are covering a huge area of land.<p>That soil has to come from somewhere, anyone know where?

Does anyone know if satellite imagery could be used to map ocean floors for this type of use? Or would the water disrupt the infrared wavelength?

&#62;<i>... by looking at infra-red images which show up underground buildings.</i><p>Yeah, I have to: those poor underground buildings... they just don't hold a candle to infra-red images from space, do they?<p>Come on BBC, "show up"? We need a Ballmer-like "Editors! Editors! Editors!" chant right about now.

Maybe we can find Atlantis now.

How does this work exactly? The wikipedia page on Infrared did not turn up any such use... or I missed it.<p>How can you see a mud brick under sand because it is "<i>much denser than the soil that surrounds it</i>"?

I wonder how they get permission to scour Egypt with a satellite camera. And even if permission was given, will Egyptian authorities allow control of the satellite and the images captured to remain with a university outside the country?<p>Anyone have a better idea how this process works?

This is awesome.

No word on whether Goa'uld holding chambers have been found in the new pyramids, I guess.<p>History repeats itself. I wonder what we can find in our past that will inform our future.<p>(although, one might say, the main thing that one learns from the study of history is that people do not learn from history)