NASA Images Capture Golds, Silvers and Bronzes of Utah Olympic Site
Newly released images and animation from a trio of NASA
spacecraft instruments capture the varied desert-to-mountain
landscape and colors of the Salt Lake City, Utah region, home
to the 19th Winter Olympic Games, to be held February 8 – 24.
Seen from space, the magnificent grandeur of Salt Lake
City and the adjacent Wasatch Mountains takes on varying
perspectives and reveals a multitude of information to
researchers. The image series includes views from the Shuttle
Radar Topography Mission and from two instruments on NASA’s
Terra Earth Observing Spacecraft: the Multi-angle Imaging
SpectroRadiometer and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission
and Reflection Radiometer (Aster). Included in the Aster
images is a 3-D fly-around animation highlighting the location
of the various Olympic venues.
The images and animation are available at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/earth/usa/west.html .
Three-dimensional stereoscopic images of the Salt Lake
City region are available in the Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission and Terra databases in the JPL Planetary Photojournal
at:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/PIAGenPlanetPage.pl?Earth .
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission was flown aboard
Space Shuttle Endeavour February 11-22, 2000. It used
modified versions of the same instruments that comprised the
Space Shuttle Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar
that flew twice on Endeavour in 1994. The mission collected
3-D measurements of Earth’s land surface using radar
interferometry, which compares two radar images taken at
slightly different locations to obtain elevation or surface-
change information. To collect the data, engineers added a
60-meter (approximately 200-foot) mast, installed additional
C-band and X-band antennas, and improved tracking and
navigation devices. More information is available at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm .
The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer is one of five
Earth-observing experiments aboard the Terra satellite,
launched in December 1999. The instrument acquires images of
Earth at nine angles simultaneously, using nine separate
cameras pointed forward, downward and backward along its
flight path. The change in reflection at different view
angles affords the means to distinguish different types of
atmospheric particles, cloud forms and land surface covers.
More information is available at:
http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov .
The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection
Radiometer is another Earth-observing instrument on NASA’s
Terra satellite. With its 14 spectral bands from the visible
to the thermal infrared wavelength region, and its high
spatial resolution of 15 to 90 meters (about 50 to 300 feet),
Aster will image Earth for the next six years to map and
monitor the changing surface of our planet. More information
is available at:
NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise is a long-term research
and technology program designed to examine Earth’s land,
oceans, atmosphere, ice and life as a total integrated system.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.
Note to Broadcasters: A video package with images and
animations will be carried on NASA Television on Feb. 6, 7,
and 8 at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m., and midnight EST. NASA
TV is broadcast on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees West
longitude, vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0
megahertz with audio on 6.8 megahertz. For general questions
about the NASA video files, contact Fred Brown, NASA TV,
Washington, D.C. (202) 358-0713.
