Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, appear in the
foreground of this perspective view generated from a Landsat satellite
image and elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
(SRTM). The city center is located at Table Bay (at the lower left),
adjacent to Table Mountain, a 1,086-meter (3,563-foot) tall sandstone
and granite natural landmark.
Cape Town enjoys a Mediterranean climate but must deal with the
limited water supply characteristic of that climate. Until the 1890s
the city relied upon streams and springs along the base of Table
Mountain, then built a small reservoir atop Table Mountain to capture
and store rainfall there. Now the needs of a much larger population are
met in part by much larger reservoirs such as seen here far inland
(mid-distance left) at the Theewaterskloof Dam.
False Bay is the large bay to the south (right) of Cape Town, just
around the Cape of Good Hope. It is one of the largest bays along the
entire South African coast, but nearby Cape Town has its harbor at
Table Bay. False Bay got its name because mariners approaching Cape
Town from the east would see the prominent bay and falsely assume it
to be the entrance to Cape Town harbor. Similarly, people often mistake
the Cape of Good Hope as the southernmost point of Africa. But the
southernmost point is actually Cape Agulhas, located just to the
southeast (upper right) of this scene.
This Landsat and SRTM perspective view uses a 2-times vertical
exaggeration to enhance topographic expression. The back edges of the
data sets form a false horizon and a false sky was added. Colors of
the scene were enhanced by image processing but are the natural color
band combination from the Landsat satellite.
Elevation data used in this image was acquired by the Shuttle Radar
Topography Mission (SRTM) aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, launched
on February 11, 2000. SRTM used the same radar instrument that comprised
the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar
(SIR-C/X-SAR) that flew twice on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1994.
SRTM was designed to collect three-dimensional measurements of the
Earth's surface. To collect the 3-D data, engineers added a 60-meter-long
(200-foot) mast, installed additional C-band and X-band antennas, and
improved tracking and navigation devices. The mission is a cooperative
project between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),
the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) of the U.S. Department
of Defense (DoD), and the German and Italian space agencies. It is
managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's
Earth Science Enterprise, Washington, D.C.
View Size: 66 kilometers (41 miles) wide by 134 kilometers (83 miles) distance
Location: 34.2 degrees South latitude, 18.7 degrees East longitude
Orientation: View toward east-southeast
Image Data: Landsat Bands 1, 2, 3 in blue, green, red
Date Acquired: February 2000 (SRTM), June 13, 2000 (Landsat)