New Topographic Map Makes World of Difference

Digital depiction of our home planet’s topography is taking a major leap forward.

Bringing incredibly high value to a wide variety of fields — energy to engineering, habitat management to hazard preparedness — the new and expansive digital topographic map is making headlines and will be aiding the work of scientists for years to come.

The previous best global digital topographic map was comprised of data from approximately 80 percent of the earth’s surface between 57 degrees south and 60 degrees north latitudes. This is now replaced with a far more complete digital representation of 99 percent of the planet's surface between 83 degree north and south latitudes.

This new map arises through a partnership between the United States and Japan. The satellite responsible for the data collection, built in Japan and named Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER, for short), has been at work since its launch from the United States in 1999.

In addition to painting a higher resolution and broader portrait, the quality of the information ASTER will provide will continue to improve.

Jet Propulsion Lab scientist Michael Kobrik muses on the current and anticipated benefits of ASTER’s capacities:

"The ASTER data fill in many of the voids in the shuttle mission's data, such as in very steep terrains and in some deserts. NASA is working to combine the Aster data with that of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission and other sources to produce an even better global topographic map."

A gallery ASTER project images as well as a 27MB downloadable TIFF image of the global composite map are available on NASA’s website.