It's instantaneous for the satellite to be delivered: Australian expert

CANBERRA (Xinhua) - A new satellite photo was released on Saturday, bringing new hope to find the missing Malaysian flight MH370. But old doubt lingers on why this new photo again being released four days after its was taken.

John Blaxland, a senior fellow with the Australian National University's Strategic and Defense Center, ruled out any conspiracy theory based on the time lag, saying satellite photos are never instantanous.

"The problem is the satellite photo takes some time to be delivered. It's never instantaneous. It's never the second the photo was taken, the analysts will receive it," he said at an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

He said once getting the images, the analysts have to pull through photo after photo. It may have to take some time for them to zoom in, inch by inch, looking at the photos, and decide what' s there and finally identify that object.

"That requires skill, that requires tenacity, that takes time. That does not happen instantaneously."

Once that is done, the analysts need to reflect on what they've seen and looking for other possible object around. Rigorous analysis and study of all of the data need to be done before an image can go public.

He recalled that there had been cases when people fumbling with incomplete information put it out there and having to be retracted.

"When you think about the processes that have to be gone through before information can be released, then it's understandable there is a little bit of a time lag."

And that time lag is "interesting" because that means the work of the surveillance aircraft is all the more important because people can't get that timeliness from a satellite image.

"You got to have eyes on the object at the time. Then can verify the exact geo-location of the piece of debris. Then convince the ships and other assets onto the sight for them to drag out of the water," he explained.

The Boeing 777-200 aircraft, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, including 154 Chinese, went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.