Sochi, Russia Winter Olympic Sites (Mountain Cluster)
The 2014 Winter Olympic ski runs may be rated double black diamond, but
they're not quite as steep as they appear in this image of the skiing and
snowboarding sites for the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, acquired on Jan. 4, 2014,
by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER)
instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. Rosa Khutar ski resort near Sochi,
Russia, is in the valley at center, and the runs are visible on the shadowed
slopes on the left-hand side of the valley. Height has been exaggerated 1.5
times to bring out topographic details. The games, which begin on Feb. 7 and
continue for 17 days, feature six new skiing and boarding events plus the return
of the legendary Jamaican bobsled team to the winter games for the first time
since 2002.
In this southwest-looking image, red indicates vegetation, white is snow, and
the resort site appears in gray. The area imaged is about 11 miles (18
kilometers) across in the foreground and 20 miles (32 kilometers) from front to
back. The image was created from the ASTER visible and near-infrared bands,
draped over ASTER-derived digital elevation data.
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 images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our
planet. ASTER is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched Dec. 18, 1999,
on Terra. The instrument was built by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry. A joint U.S./Japan science team is responsible for validation and
calibration of the instrument and data products.
The broad spectral coverage and high spectral resolution of ASTER provides
scientists in numerous disciplines with critical information for surface mapping
and monitoring of dynamic conditions and temporal change. Example applications
are: monitoring glacial advances and retreats; monitoring potentially active
volcanoes; identifying crop stress; determining cloud morphology and physical
properties; wetlands evaluation; thermal pollution monitoring; coral reef
degradation; surface temperature mapping of soils and geology; and measuring
surface heat balance.
The U.S. science team is located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif. The Terra mission is part of NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington, D.C. ;More information about ASTER is available at asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science
Team
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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