SWOT maps 100,000 underwater mountains from space

NASA and CNES's SWOT mission produced a marine-gravity map of the seafloor at roughly 8-kilometer resolution, resolving seamounts as small as 450 meters tall. The known seamount count could rise from about 44,000 to 100,000, with over 200,000 previously unrecognized abyssal hills found.

• SWOT detects seamounts about 450 meters tall and 4 kilometers across
• Gravity map resolution is roughly 8 kilometers, beating decades of altimetry
• Known seamounts could grow from about 44,000 to 100,000
• More than 200,000 previously unknown abyssal hills identified