Front Range of the Rockies

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These Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) images from May 12, 2001, include portions of southern Wyoming, central Colorado, and western Nebraska. The top view is from the instrument's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera. The bottom image is a stereo "anaglyph" generated using data from the nadir and 46-degree-forward cameras. Viewing the anaglyph with red/blue glasses (red filter over your left eye) gives a 3-D effect. To facilitate stereo viewing, the images have been oriented with north at the left. Each image measures 422 kilometers x 213 kilometers.

The South Platte River enters just to the right of center at the top of the images. It wends its way westward (down), then turns southward (right) where it flows through the city of Denver. Located at the western edge of the Great Plains, Denver is nicknamed the "Mile High City," a consequence of its 1609-meter (5280-foot) elevation above sea level. It shows up in the imagery as a grayish patch surrounded by numerous agricultural fields to the north and east. Denver is situated just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, located in the lower right of the images. The Rockies owe their present forms to tectonic uplift and sculpting by millions of years of erosion. Scattered cumulus clouds floating above the mountain peaks are visible in these images, and stand out most dramatically in the 3-D stereo view.

To the north of Denver, other urban areas included within these images are Boulder, Greeley, Longmont, and Fort Collins, Colorado; Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming; and Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team.

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