A new digital map of land topography
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NASA, in collaboration with Japan, has released a new digital map representing the topography of the Earth with a blanket never equaled. The map was produced from 1.3 million images collected by the Japanese ASTER radiometer flown on Terra, a spaceship from NASA. NASA and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry - known as METI - have developed the database. You can consult free online.
Woody Turner, a researcher affiliated with the program Aster says: "This is the database of digital topographic measurements available as provided in the
world." Mike Abrams, director of the research team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), this information will be valuable to the Earth sciences and could lead to many practical applications: "topographic data can Aster be used for engineering, research source of energy, conservation of natural resources, environmental management, design of public works for the fight against fire, recreation, geology, planning cities, to name a few fields of applications "
Previously, the record topographic data from the most comprehensive of the mission of the NASA Shuttle Radar Topography. During the mission 80% of the land surface between north latitude and 60 ° south latitude 57 °. The new data collected by Aster cover 99% between the 83rd latitude north and 83rd South. A measurement of the elevation was performed every 30 meters. NASA also is trying to combine data from Aster with those of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission to get further details.
Aster is one of the 5 observation instrument launched aboard Terra in December 1999. Aster has collected images from the range to the visible wavelengths of thermal radiation with a spatial resolution between 15 and 90 meters. Another scientific team, composed of American and Japanese researchers for its deals with the calibration of instruments and data validation. The U.S. team is working with the JPL.
Posted by admin
on Jul 12th, 2009 and filed under NASA.
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