Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Most Complete Earth Map Published

An image of Death Valley - the lowest, driest, and hottest location in North America - composed of a simulated natural color image overlayed with digital topography data from the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model.

From BBC:

The most complete terrain map of the Earth's surface has been published.

The data, comprising 1.3 million images, come from a collaboration between the US space agency Nasa and the Japanese trade ministry.

The images were taken by Japan's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) aboard the Terra satellite.

The resulting Global Digital Elevation Map covers 99% of the Earth's surface, and will be free to download and use.

The Terra satellite, dedicated to Earth monitoring missions, has shed light on issues ranging from algal blooms to volcano eruptions.

Read more ....

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