The Most Complete Topographic Map Of The World

By Christopher Nickson
July 01, 2009

NASA and the Japanese government have worked together to provide the most complete topographic map of Earth to date.

It is, they claim, the most complete topographic map of Earth ever made. With detailed measurements taken by NASA’s Terra spacecraft, the new map just published by NASA and the Japanese government covers 99% of the Earth’s surface – although the poles have been left off. 

The map was created by processing or correlating 1.3 million stereo-pair images snapped that had been taken by the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emissions and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on board Terra. After that natural color was simulated on the data before it was superimposed over terrain models to give the final image.
The data is free for anyone to download. 

Previously NASA had mapped 80% of the Earth’s surface with data from the Shuttle Radar Topography ...

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