What are Satellites capabilities for zooming close up to the earth at night?

I recently learned about google maps option of street view for satellite imagery. I could see houses in close up detail from all angles of the street, aswell as people in close up detail from multiple angles walking down the street. My question is what are the highest level production of satellites capable of viewing and from what distances/clarity at night time? Who owns them? Is there such thing as long distance thermal imaging? Long distance X-Ray? Long distance land Sonar? Anything on this subject would be interesting.What are Satellites capabilities for zooming close up to the earth at night?
My question is what are the highest level production of satellites capable of viewing and from what distances/clarity at night time?



The answer is that the answer is classified. Keep in mind tho, that back when the highest resolution that civilian sat imagery was 5 meters, governments were viewing with todays 2 meter resolution or better. So in general, the civilian market is restricted to tech several generations behind that which is available to governments. The limit is imposed for "reasons of national security".



Who owns them?



Governments and private companies / corporations under contract with the government.



Is there such thing as long distance thermal imaging?



Yes, but it it's resolution is not nearly as good as visible spectrum imaging. Commonly used in meteorology and astronomy.



Long distance X-Ray?



Yes, but they are not used for terrestrial viewing. They are used in astronomy to view the xrays emitted by extraterrestrial bodies (such as stars and black holes).



Long distance land Sonar?



No possible, satellites are positioned in orbit beyond our atmosphere and sound cannot be transmitted without a medium. Modern satellites use radar instead of sound for purposes such as mapping and observing weather.



@wilde_space

The high resolution top down images featured on google earth are actually composed using a variety of methods including (but not limited to) airplanes, government satellites, and civilian satellites.



Google initially purchased their satellite imagery from sources such as microsoft (terraserver), noaa, nasa, and the dod. They didnt not capture it all by themselves. I believe google actually took over terraserver and thereby gained all their existing satellite data.
Google Street View is done by cars with special cameras. From the Ground. Most of Google Earth is actually done by aircraft, not by satellites.



Most optical Earth observation satellites are watching the Earth directly below them, and rarely are better than 1 meter resolution. The best I am aware of is 50 cm resolution for special products.



Thermal imaging is observing in Infrared(IR), which is also done by optical satellites. Most such satellites actually use IR, because you can see differences in vegetation and temperature that way. X Ray is not used, since most things on Earth don't emit X-Ray radiation. Sonar doesn't work in space, since sound requires a medium to travel through, and can't pass the vacuum. What is used are radar satellites, which are better than optical because clouds don't disturb them.



Satellite Cameras that rely on visible light (what your eyes can see), can't work at night, only IR and Radar works then. Most satellites that observe things in visible light are in sun-synchronous orbit, which means they pass all objects at the same local times, for example early in the morning and late in the evening.What are Satellites capabilities for zooming close up to the earth at night?
Street view is not from satellites. It's from a van that was driving along those streets. The hi-rez top-down photos are not from satellites either, they're from planes.



Satellites owned by the military are very good and can detect things down to 10 cm in size, but any Information about them is classified. I have no idea about the night capabilities of satellites, sorry.



This article should help you more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SatelliteWhat are Satellites capabilities for zooming close up to the earth at night?
Here are some satellites with their resolutions. Panchromatic is essentially B%26amp;W, multispectral is colour and night is infrared.

GeoEye-1: 41 centimetres panchromatic and 1.65 meter multispectral and at night

Pleiades 1 and 2: 0.5 meter and 2 meter

WorldView-2: 0.5 meter panchromatic

SPOT-5: resolution 2.5 meter in panchromatic mode, 10 meter multispectral and at night

Landsat 7: 15 meter and 30 meter



All data from the French SPOT site, where you can find a lot more satellites: http://www.satimagingcorp.com/satellite-鈥?/a>



The Google images are taken by all sorts of means, but mainly by plane. maps.google.fr uses SPOT images when available and have a better resolution for mainland France.



Finally Google streetview photos were taken with cars like this one: http://www.zorgloob.com/images/google-ca鈥?/a>
lets just say that they can see whether you are smokin a joint or a cigarette