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Tools of Polar Research Posted: February 6, 2008
Antarctica Map

A new, high-definition, true-color interactive map of Antarctica that was released in December will allow both researchers and the public to explore the continent online in greater detail than ever before.

Antarctica map. Image Credit: NASAThe map, called LIMA (Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica), is made up of nearly 1,100 images taken by the Landsat 7 satellite, woven together to show the entire continent. It shows cloudless views of Antarctica's mountains, valleys, glaciers and even the human presence on the continent, such as the McMurdo research station.

Compared to previous mosaic maps of Antarctica, "it's like going from grainy black-and-white ... to high-definition color TV -- sort of a wide-screen view of the continent," said Robert Bindschadler, a glaciologist at NASA who led the project, which was developed with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The most recent prior map, developed from images taken by an instrument called MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites, had a spatial resolution of about 250 square meters. LIMA, in contrast, has a resolution of about 15 square meters, meaning that features half the size of a basketball court are visible.

The mosaic also shows Antarctica in true color. Bindschadler said when he first showed it to a panel of polar researchers, all of whom had visited the continent many times, "their jaws dropped. They said, 'Shoot, that's what it really looks like flying into Antarctica.'"

Researchers will be able to use the map to study the flow of glaciers, examine rocks and plan future research trips, Bindschadler said. But, he added, the benefits to the public are just as great.

LIMA is available on NASA's Web site and the U.S. Geological Survey's Web site. Users can zoom in and out to examine features and download images.

And the public has flocked to the sites, which are setting records for number of hits, Bindschadler said.

"USGS has never seen that kind of response," he said. "They had to take this offline and put it on separate servers because it was slowing down everything else they did."


-- By Lea Winerman, Online NewsHour

More information

Audio Slide Show
NASA glaciologist Robert Bindschadler explains the LIMA project and how it came to be.

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