WASHINGTON -- Military and private satellite snapshots of Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey reveal an anomaly that researchers say might be the remains of Noah's Ark.

A soon-to-be-launched commercial spacecraft will focus powerful cameras on the mysterious mountainside oddity to help unravel its true nature.

In the past, expeditions permitted to search the area for what some claim are the ruins of Noah's Ark, while failing to conclusively prove its existence, have succeeded in sustaining debate. The area itself is a geopolitical and religious hot spot, with Mount Ararat sitting in the far eastern frontier of Turkey, near the borders of Armenia, Georgia (formerly part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR) and Iran.

Even the late Apollo 15 moonwalker James Irwin was repeatedly drawn to Mount Ararat in hopes of finding Ark wreckage. Through his High Flight Foundation, a non-profit evangelical organization based in Colorado Springs, the former astronaut made six treks to Mount Ararat in an unsuccessful quest to find remains of the ark.

Irwin's last expedition in 1990 ran into trouble. Turkish police detained him following allegations that he engaged in spying while looking for the Ark. Since 1991, the mountain has been closed due to Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in the area.

Today the exploration of 17,000-foot Mount Ararat and the search for Noah's Ark has moved to higher ground -- thanks to high-tech satellite flyovers.

To get up to speed on this search, it helps to start with the Bible.

Noah was instructed by God to save his family and the world's animals during a great flood that would cover the Earth. To do so, Noah built a large vessel, an ark. What followed was a pouring rain lasting 40 days and 40 nights. According to the Book of Genesis, as the Great Flood receded, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

Now jump to 1949.

Aircraft imagery of Mount Ararat taken in June of that year and analyzed by U.S. intelligence officials includes a unique feature at the 15,500-foot level on the Northwestern Plateau. Then in 1973 and 1976, through the lenses of classified satellites, this "whatever-it-is" also purportedly stirred up the same community.

"It's called the 'Ararat Anomaly'," said Porcher Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, and an expert in satellite imaging diplomacy and the news media. He has been gathering evidence on the novel feature since 1993, including a set of those 1949 aerial shots of the area, now declassified.

Taylor said that arguments have erupted within intelligence circles for decades as to what truly has been seen on Mount Ararat.

"Debates center on whether or not it's a strange rock formation, a crashed airplane, perhaps a fortress or some other structure hundreds of years old or maybe something more interesting of potentially biblical proportions," Taylor told SPACE.com. Certain individuals in the know, he added, believe what is visible in certain satellite pictures is the bow of a ship sticking out of a glacier.

The anomaly is apparently more than 600-feet long (183 meters), Taylor said, at least that part of it jutting out as seen in aerial and satellite imagery. One expert, a naval engineer and architect, when looking at the photos believes "prongs" or "ribs" of the keel of an ancient marine structure can be identified, he said.