NASA and USGS Produce Best Ever Satellite Images of Antarctica
13.03.2007 - Logistics, Other
Researchers from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have woven together more than a thousand images from the Landsat 7 satellite in order to create the most detailed high-resolution map of Antarctica ever produced.
These images provide scientists with an incredibly detailed view of the Antarctic ice sheet's surface and can be used to map locations which have never been mapped before. The resolution sensitivity of the Landsat sensor is able to record subtle variations in the ice sheet's surface, giving information on ice sheet features, the flow of the ice sheet and changes in the ice sheet's surface.
This true color, nearly cloud-free view of Antarctica was produced using specialized software which stacks several images of various Antarctic locations together and, thereby, creates a larger image. The researchers also arranged the images on top of one another, a sequence which generates a clear view all the way to the surface by removing the cloud effects contained in some images.
This single continent-wide map is called the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctic (LIMA) and is one of over 228 projects funded in conjunction with the International Polar Year (IPY), launched this March by 63 cooperating countries to improve scientific understanding of the Earth's polar regions.
