The technology won't be able to predict specific quakes, but will allow scientists to spot five- or 10-year seismic hot spots and 'figure out where to target our retrofitting,' JPL geophysicists say. A new radar imaging system flying over California's complicated network of faults on the belly of a Gulfstream jet is collecting some of the most detailed images yet of the Earth's surface shifting and straining with seismic energy, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory say.