{"id":982,"date":"2026-05-09T13:12:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/?p=982"},"modified":"2026-05-09T13:12:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:12:31","slug":"up-to-2cm-a-month-nasa-keeps-track-as-mexico-city-sinks-into-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/2026\/05\/09\/up-to-2cm-a-month-nasa-keeps-track-as-mexico-city-sinks-into-the-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Up to 2cm a month: Nasa keeps track as Mexico City sinks into the ground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Powerful radar system is providing new data on city\u2019s subsidence, which experts hope will draw more attention to it

Walking into Mexico<\/a> City\u2019s sprawling central Z\u00f3calo<\/em> is a dizzying experience. At one end of the plaza, the capital\u2019s cathedral, with its soaring spires, slumps in one direction. An attached church, known as the Metropolitan Sanctuary, tilts in the other. The nearby National Palace also seems off-kilter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The teetering of many of the capital\u2019s historic buildings is the most visible sign of a phenomenon that has been ongoing for more than a century: Mexico City is sinking at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the metropolis\u2019s descent is being tracked in real time thanks to one of the most powerful radar systems ever launched into space. Known as Nisar, the satellite can detect minute changes in Earth\u2019s surface, even through thick vegetation or cloud cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNisar takes radar imaging observations of Earth to the next level,\u201d said Marin Govor\u010din, a scientist at Nasa\u2019s jet propulsion laboratory. \u201cNisar will see any change big or small that happens on Earth from week to week. No other imaging mission can claim this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Building<\/a>
A building affected by the subsidence. Photograph: Ross D Franklin\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Though not the first time that Mexico City\u2019s sinking has been\u00a0observed from space<\/a>, the Nisar mission has provided a greater sense of how far the sinking spreads and how it changes across different types of land than any other space-based sensor. It has also been able to penetrate areas on the outskirts of the city that were previously challenging to study because of the complex terrain.
The implications of the imagery extend far beyond the Mexican capital. \u201cThis study of Mexico City speaks to the realm of possibilities that will open up thanks to the Nisar system,\u201d said Dar\u00edo Solano-Rojas, an engineer at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Unam). \u201cAnd not just for sinking cities but also for studying volcanoes, for studying the deformation associated with earthquakes, for studying landslides.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Powerful radar system is providing new data on city\u2019s subsidence, which experts hope will draw more attention to it Walking into Mexico City\u2019s sprawling central Z\u00f3calo is a dizzying experience. At one end of the plaza, the capital\u2019s cathedral, with its soaring spires, slumps in one direction. An attached church, known as the Metropolitan Sanctuary, tilts in the other. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyleaf.live\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}