Space Archaeologist Wants Your Help To Find Ancient Sites

July 27, 2017 -- Sarah Parcak is a space archaeologist. She uses satellite imagery to track looted ancient burial sites and  find pyramids hidden under Egyptian cities. Now, she has bigger plans: to launch a worldwide campaign to make all of us space archaeologists.

She will be doing it through  a digital platform called Global Xplorer, which will utilize crowdsourcing and satellite images to discover and protect unknown archaeological sites around the world. Parcak is the  2016 TED Prize winner — and she plans to launch the platform with the $1 million award that comes with the prize.

Parcak explains to NPR's Ari Shapiro how she plans to "game-ify" archaeological research and how she is enlisting everyone's help to pull it off.

"This is going to be a super high tech version of Google Earth," she says. "My team and I are going to process lots of satellite imagery and they'll be put on this platform."

Users will be given a small card from a deck that shows real, processed satellite imagery of a plot of land not more than 20 by 20 or 30 by 30 meters in size. There will be clues and keys by the side of the picture to help them identify whether they're seeing a known site, like a pyramid, or a new site.

 

A satellite image of the archaeological site of Tanis, after processing. Sarah Parcak used satellite data to find the ancient Egyptian city.

Courtesy of Sarah Parcak


Read the complete story ...
Featured Video
Editorial
Latest Blog Posts
Sanjay GangalMCADCafe Editorial
by Sanjay Gangal
MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2025 – ProShop
Sanjay GangalMCADCafe Editorial
by Sanjay Gangal
MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2025 – ModuleWorks
Jobs
Senior Principal Mechanical Engineer for General Dynamics Mission Systems at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania
Equipment Engineer, Raxium for Google at Fremont, California
Mechanical Engineer 2 for Lam Research at Fremont, California
Mechanical Engineer 3 for Lam Research at Fremont, California
Mechanical Test Engineer, Platforms Infrastructure for Google at Mountain View, California
Mechanical Manufacturing Engineering Manager for Google at Sunnyvale, California
Upcoming Events
Collaborate North America 2025 at Novi MI - Jan 28, 2025
Celebrate Manufacturing Excellence at Anaheim Convention Center Anaheim CA - Feb 4 - 6, 2025
3DEXPERIENCE World 2025 at George R. Brown Convention Center Houston TX - Feb 23 - 26, 2025
TIMTOS 2025 at Nangang Exhibition Center Hall 1 & 2 (TaiNEX 1 & 2) TWTC Hall Taipei Taiwan - Mar 3 - 8, 2025



© 2025 Internet Business Systems, Inc.
670 Aberdeen Way, Milpitas, CA 95035
+1 (408) 882-6554 — Contact Us, or visit our other sites:
AECCafe - Architectural Design and Engineering EDACafe - Electronic Design Automation GISCafe - Geographical Information Services TechJobsCafe - Technical Jobs and Resumes ShareCG - Share Computer Graphic (CG) Animation, 3D Art and 3D Models
  Privacy PolicyAdvertise