Australian RAAF Plane
Flight officer Rayan Gharazeddine looks out of a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) AP-3C Orion as it flies over the southern Indian Ocean during the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 March 22, 2014. China said on Saturday it had a new satellite image of what could be wreckage from a missing Malaysian airliner, as more planes and ships headed to join an international search operation scouring some of the remotest seas on Earth. REUTERS/Rob Griffith/Pool (MID-EAST - Tags: MILITARY TRANSPORT) March 22, 2014 Reuters
Flight officer Rayan Gharazeddine looks out of a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) AP-3C Orion as it flies over the southern Indian Ocean during the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 March 22, 2014. China said on Saturday it had a new satellite image of what could be wreckage from a missing Malaysian airliner, as more planes and ships headed to join an international search operation scouring some of the remotest seas on Earth. REUTERS/Rob Griffith/Pool (MID-EAST - Tags: MILITARY TRANSPORT) March 22, 2014

After 2 weeks of frustrating but seemingly fruitless search for the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 747 jet, another glimmer of hope of solving the mystery of the aircraft's disappearance appeared.

Two days after Australia's satellite spotted two objects in the southern Indian Ocean, China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) reported on its Web site that its Gaofen-1 high-definition earth observation satellite spotted another object in southern Indian Ocean.

China immediately dispatched ships to check the debris if it could be the wreckage of Flight 370. Malaysian Defence Minister and acting Transport Secretary Hashmmuddin Hussein said Beijing is expected to make an announcement within a few hours.

The object is about 22 metres long (74 feet) and 13 metres (43 feet) wide, and it was spotted on early Tuesday, March 18, at 120 kilometres (75 miles) west from the location where Australia spotted two objects.

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A third floating object could be indeed an indicator that the ill-fated jet crashed in the Indian Ocean and spread debris. But if the objects are eventually found and confirmed to be parts of the missing aircraft, it would dash hopes of the relatives of the 239 passengers and crew of the Malaysian Airline Flight 370 that their kin are still alive despite 14 days of zero communication from any of them.

Over two dozen nations are involved in the search for the jet which went missing on March 8 a few hours after leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.

Australia, which discovered the first two objects still unlocated after two days of intensive search, again issued a caution from expecting too much on the debris.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said in a statement, "Even though this is not a definite lead, it is probably more solid than any other lead around the world and that is why so much effort and interest is being put in this search."