Most advanced Earth map released

NASA and Japan combine forces to produce most detailed images of world

The most detailed pictures of the world, detailing 99% of its surface, have been released, taken by cameras on board a powerful satellite launched ten years ago,

ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) is part of the TERRA satellite launched in 1999, in a joint effort by NASA and Japan, to explore the changing surface of the earth and the way man has added to these changes.

It takes images of the earth using all the wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum – ranging from visible light, to infrared waves – in order to get the highest resolution pictures.

The five main objectives quoted by NASA all relate to climate change and are to discover more about aerosols, global cloudiness, the role of oceans in climate change, earth temperature and land formation.

It is regarded as a hugely important step forward in earth observation and will be used by people from a wide range of professions.

NASA scientist Woody Turner said: 'This is the most complete, consistent global digital elevation data yet made available to the world.'

It only takes eight minutes of data in a single orbit, and it acts as a kind of “zoom-lense” on the satellite, which has another four powerful data collecting instruments.

After ten years it has taken numerous different images and one of the highlights is the Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM). Created using nearly 1.3 million images, this shows the earth’s terrain as a whole and uses colour-coding to display the different elevations, with purple representing low land, medium land green and yellow, and high land orange, red and then white.

For more information visit http://terra.nasa.gov/About/index.php

http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/index.asp is ASTER’s main website and has an online gallery with all the best pictures created from the data, with colour added in.