He is Watching Us, From a Distance

(8/16/2008)

We recently happened upon some breathtaking imagery of Bali made by NASA's Shuttle Topography Mission (SRTM) that was just too good not to share.

[Click to Enlarge]

Shown on balidiscovery.com are advance technology representations of Bali's surface seen from the heavens. Using both shading and color coding for topographic height, green represents lower elevations changing to yellow and tan, and finally to white at the very highest elevations. NASA's clever computers also gave added richness by shading the image as though it was lit by the sun sitting in the northwest; northwest slopes of the volcanoes are brilliantly illuminated, while the southeast slopes of the mountains appear in shadows.

Created by data provided in February of 2002 from the Space Shuttle Endeavour, special masts, antennas and additional sophisticated navigational equipment were deployed to acquire the highly accurate relief maps of Bali.

Bali, sitting astride a major subduction zone where the Indo-Australian tectonic plates meet, is highly volcanic with no less than 6 peaks of at east 2,000 meters dotting the island, east to west. Our highest volcano is the sacred Mt. Agung, viewed as the world's navel in local religious folklore, measuring 3,412 meters above sea level.

Our special thanks to the folks at NASA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) of the U.S. Department of Defense, and the German and Italian Space Agencies who cooperated in making these amazing images possible.