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
