  The use of the Van Cittert--Zernike theorem for the formulation of the
visibility function in satellite-based Earth observation with passive
radiometers does not take into account the relative motion of the observer (the
satellite antenna) with respect to sources of the electro-magnetic fields at
the surface of the Earth. The motion of the observer leads on the one hand to a
more complex signal due to a pixel-dependent Doppler shift that is neglected in
the standard derivation of the Van Cittert--Zernike theorem, but on the other
hand one may hope that it could be employed for a temporal aperture synthesis,
where virtual baselines are created through the motion of the satellite. Here,
we generalize the formulation of the aperture synthesis concept to the case of
observers moving with respect to the sources, and to the correlation of fields
measured at times that differ by the travel time of the observer along a
virtual baseline. Our derivation is based on first principles, starting with
the wave propagation in the Earth reference frame of electro-magnetic fields
arising from incoherent current sources, and Lorentz transforming the fields
into the reference frame of the satellite. Our detailed study leads to the
remarkable conclusion that the delay time due to observer motion cancels
exactly the Doppler effect. This justifies the neglect of the Doppler effect in
existing imaging systems based on the standard Van Cittert--Zernike theorem.
