Early in the year 2000, the Space Shuttle Endevour will blast into space
to map the Earth's surface in
unprecedented detail. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission will map 80% of
the Earth's terrain at 30 meter
resolution. Currently, high resolution topography data is only available
for a few regions of the world, and much
of that data is of questionable quality. Applications include volcano
monitoring, hydrologic modeling, and land use planning.
The above image shows the terrain in central Lebanon. The lowest point
in this image is 250 meters, the highest 2650 meters. North is towards the
top.
For more information, see JPL's Shuttler Radar Topography Mission
Image by Robert Simmon