ryan abernathy, assistant professor from department of earth and environmental sciences at columbia universitynew york, ryan, you studied the region. give us a quick sense of what the searchers are up against right now. >> well, we are heading into the southern hemisphere winter. they can expect huge swells, big storms, and moreover, they can expect really strong anti-arctic polar current, that major current system in the region to spread the debris around really fast. >> so if the satellite image spotted 122 pieces of something on sunday, and now it is wednesday, flights went out earlier today, didn't see anything, how difficult is it to find the location, given the currents, given the mobility of what's going on over there? >> just the back of the envelope calculation says the debris can move 20 or 30 miles around per day. so just because they saw it in one location yesterday doesn't mean it is going to be there today. and you know, certainly it is very turbulent, so it is a tough problem they're facing. >> and there's a lot of junk out there to begin with, so these 122 images, that could be

ryan abernathy from columbia university can figure out where the airplane hit the water by using satellitewhat we're looking at is a nasa satellite that orbits the earth and measures very precisely the height of the sea's surface clearly seen in these colored boxes. >> what we take is what these satellites measure, and then we plug it into a computer program that uses those currents to move material around, you know, inside the program virtually. >> so if there are objects in the ocean in these bumps, you're able to measure the movement of those objects? >> exactly. >> reporter: the hope is to find a trace of the 777. you would be able to calculate back to the crash site of mh 370? >> yes. the hypothetical crash site. now, we don't have any confirmed debris. >> reporter: here is what it look likes on map. >> as you go from red to blue, you go backwards in time. >> reporter: meaning, if a debris sight is in red, the cluster of blue dots would show where the plane hypothetically hit the water. this would help us find the haystack as to where to look? >> that's a very good way of putting it.

ryan abernathy, we will continue the conversation with you. thanks very much. >>> that's it for me. i am back at 5:00 p.m. eastern. a two hour edition of "the situation room." newsroom with brooke baldwin starts right now. >>> wolf, thank you. hi there, brooke baldwin. news just in to cnn. defense secretary chuck hagel says he is not ruling out anything, including terrorism in the disappearance of this plane, this flight 370. but as for the hunt for the plane itself, could this finally be the breakthrough for the search for flight 370. look at this with me. what you're looking at is called the most credible lead so far. new satellite imagery showing 122, very precise here, 122 objects floating in the southern indian ocean. some do appear to be big, the size possibly of a wing. some a little smaller, perhaps the size of a seat. >> we are able to identify 122 potential objects. some objects were mitten length, others as much as 23 meters in length. some objects appear to be bright, indicating solid material. >> these images that we're focusing on were taken by a french satellite sunda

we're joined by cnn aviation analyst and contributor to slate and ryan abernathy, an assistant professorat columbia university. i want to put out this picture again. the new satellite image taken by a thai satellite showing some 300 pieces of possible debris. this was found, now, about 120 miles or so from the picture we saw just yesterday of 122 objects of possible debris taken a day earlier. all right, ryan. show me where these debris sightings were. these possible debris sightings from the satellite and the significance. >> so the two early sightings or the three earlier sightings were the more northern dots. the new point is significantly south of there, 100 miles or so south of there. >> this was the very first picture we got from a satellite showing some possible debris in the search area which is that square. the second dot right in the middle is where 122 pieces of debris were found by the french satellite. this third dot, the picture we're just seeing today, some 300 objects of debris. is this where the currents could be taking it? >> yeah. so what's happening now is we have aed