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The Most Complete Map of the Earth

> Greater Knowledge of Natural Phenomena

> Other Applications

> Cartography and Topographical Maps


dilluns, 17 de gener de 2005
This January, NASA, the North American Space Agency, announced the completion of the most complete three-dimensional topographical map of the Earth ever made. The map covers 80% of the land mass, on which almost 95% of the population of the planet live.

This is a map of great precision which is the result of four years of work, the time the scientists have invested in processing the documentation compiled in October 2000 by the space shuttle Endeavour when, over the course of eleven days, it completely orbited the Earth a total of one hundred seventy-six times.

As well as NASA, the project, named Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), has also been realised by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the space agencies of Italy and Germany.

Amongst other things, this project has allowed unprecedented precision in the mapping of extensive areas of the Earth's surface, such as Australia and New Zealand. The map includes over one thousand islands of Polynesia and Melanesia in the Pacific Ocean, islands in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans and many more areas that in previous missions were under cloud cover.

For these reasons, this cartographic mission has been described as possibly the most important ever undertaken. And in fact the map will have very diverse applications, as we shall see.
  • + Webs relacionades dins Nosaltres.Com: Mapes

Greater Knowledge of Natural Phenomena


+ Sicily's Mount Etna.
In effect, this high resolution map will allow scientists to get more in-depth knowledge of the evolution of various natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, volcanoes and tides (the cyclical rising and falling of sea levels), and predict the scope of storms and floods. And of course, if there is greater knowledge of all these phenomena, it will also be easier to limit the potential consequences on the population.

Other Applications


+ Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa).
Also, if, as it is planned, more topographical maps are made in the future, this will allow them to be compared to existing maps in order to clarify the changes registered on Earth that may derive from global warming and other phenomena. Bear in mind, for example, that the tsunami that tragically hit the coasts of South East Asia changed the geography of some of the most affected areas. Finally, it is worth pointing out that the topographical map undertaken by NASA will make air traffic safer, it will increase the efficacy of rescue operations and will make it easier to choose the most suitable sites for construction of infrastructure.

Cartography and Topographical Maps


+ Ptolemaic World Map.
Cartography, in other words, the art of drawing up maps, dates from long, long ago. In fact, its beginnings are earlier than writing itself. Amongst the peoples of antiquity who stood out in the cartographic art, we find the Egyptians and the Greeks. At this point, we should highlight the strong influence exercised for many centuries by the Greek astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemy, who lived at the end of the 1st and beginning of the 2nd centuries AD. Since then, of course, cartography has developed to a great extent, which has led to, among other things, the perfection of so-called topographical maps. These maps represent the physical characteristics and the relief of a particular terrain.

MATERIALS

  • Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
    Format:Web
    Pàgina de l'Agència Espacial Nord-americana (NASA), dedicada a la missió que ha permès de cartografiar la major part de la massa terrestre.
  • The Mission that Mapped the World
    Format:Web
    Una altra pàgina de la NASA sobre aquesta mateixa missió: aplicacions del mapa tridimensional, galeria d'imatges, prova de geografia...
  • Cartographic Images
    Format:Web
    Un recull de mapes de les edats antiga, mitjana i moderna.
  • Recursos
    Format:Web
    Una centena llarga de vincles sobre mapes i cartografia.

QUE HO SABIES?

  • For matters such as air traffic, NASA's topographical map will complement the information provided by satellite navigation systems, such as the North American GPS and the European Galileo, which is even more sophisticated and which will be launched in 2008.
  • According to NASA, with the data that have made it possible to draw up this map, one could fill the Library of Congress, in Washington D.C. (USA), the largest library in the world, which comprises almost nine-hundred kilometres of shelves and over twenty-nine million books and publications.
  • As well as topographical maps, there are also thematic maps, which focus on a specific subject. That is why one talks of geological maps, climactic maps, demographic maps and linguistic maps, and so on.

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