'You Can See Almost Everything.' Antarctica Just Became the Best-Mapped Continent on Earth (fortune.com) 110
Antarctica has become the best-mapped continent on Earth with a new high-resolution terrain map showing the ice-covered landmass in unprecedented detail. From a report: According to the scientists at Ohio State University and the University of Minnesota who created the imagery, Antarctica is now the best-mapped continent on Earth. The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) was constructed using hundreds of thousands of satellite images taken between 2009 and 2017, Earther reports. A supercomputer assembled the massive amounts of data, including the elevation of the land over time, and created REMA, an immensely detailed topographical map, with a file size over 150 terabytes. The new map has a resolution of 2 to 8 meters, compared to the usual 1,000 meters, says an Ohio State press release. According to The New York Times, the detail of this new map is the equivalent of being able to see down to a car, or smaller, when before you could only see the whole of Central Park. Scientists now know the elevation of every point of Antarctica, with an error margin of just a few feet.
Impressive (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They didn’t have to fiddle with the images for the Plateau of Leng, it moves constantly and since this is basically a collage of different photos from different times it just wasn’t ever captured...
Re: (Score:2)
This can be used as a baseline for climate change study.
Or just general Earth Sciences research. Even without climate chance concerns, Antarctica can be hardly assumed to be frozen in time (pun not intended).
Re: (Score:2)
This can be used as a baseline for climate change study.
Never mind that; now self driving cars can make the trip from McMurdo to Mirny without any passenger intervention!
Re: (Score:2)
Self driving "dog" sleds? (The new dogless sled!)
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Informative)
It would have to be a dog-less sled since sled dogs are banned by international treaty from Antarctica.
Good Excuse (Score:2)
Sorry honey, I can't pull you on a sled in Antarctica since I'm a little husky.
FInaly something better than GIS (Score:2)
I hope we can now see the South Pole center area clearly, as before it was poorly stitched together.
its still crap (Score:2)
Oh man still hiding the center 200km of the south pole.
http://www.maps.arcgis.com/app... [arcgis.com]
Looks like those hidden military bases are still safe.
Why is every other planet so much more clearly imaged to death to each pole in detail, but EARTH, the south pole is HIDDEN once again. And the usual excuses are 100% bullshit, as they mapped the moon and mars pretty well.
Clicking.... (Score:1)
snow.... snow.... snow.... snow... snow... snow... snow... hollyfuck, an Ancients outpost and.... snow.... snow.... snow...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Almost everything. (Score:5, Funny)
At that resolution we should be able to see the abandoned Dornier flying boats used by the Dyer Expedition.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
He's better of believing that.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Is it overall lack of change? (Score:5, Informative)
The reason there is such good coverage is that many of the low orbit imaging satellites orbit North/South, following the day/night terminator. It's called a sun-synchronous orbit, and while it covers the entire planet eventually, the north and south poles are covered on every pass. So you can get a lot more detail there for free, essentially.
Re: (Score:2)
Obligatory... (Score:2)
"I can see my house from here!"
If's it not available on google maps... (Score:2)
... does it really exist?
Re: (Score:2)
The real issue is if it's not posted on Facebook, then it does not exist.
Highly Compressed HTML Representation (Score:5, Funny)
<head>
<title>Antarctica High-Resolution Map (land only)</title>
</head>
<body style="background-color: #EEEEFF"></body>
</html>
Re:Highly Compressed HTML Representation (Score:4)
You're missing the removal of line feeds, compression algorithm failed.
There's a lot I didn't know about Antarctica (Score:3)
" According to The New York Times, the detail of this new map is the equivalent of being able to see down to a car, or smaller, when before you could only see the whole of Central Park."
Wow! There's a park and cars under the ice in Antarctica?!
Re: (Score:2)
There's also a second Stargate under the ice...
Re: (Score:2)
I knew about the Stargate - saw a documentary about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Wonder how accurate the Piri Reis map is (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Have you ever actually looked at the Piri Reis map? The cartographer clearly ran out of room while drawing South America and had to artificially bend the coast to fit it. The portion that people like to pretend is Antarctica is simply the southern coast of South America, which explains why it is drawn as connected to it.
Re: (Score:3)
Since some of the ice is a million years old, I'd say it's not very accurate.
oh great (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Think of the baby penguins!
Hey, there's Kurt Russel! (Score:1)
Let's take him home! Maybe he has a present for us!
web browser seems a little week (Score:3)
I tried to use the web browser, just with the shaded terrain - zooming in anywhere near the level of interest most people would have, the terrain just vanished...
That was on the eastern side of the upper peninsula (the peninsula is where most people go when they visit Antartica).
Re: (Score:2)
That was on the eastern side of the upper peninsula
Eastern? Which way is East? It seems that all directions are North. :)
Re: (Score:2)
I think east does work anywhere but at the pole, however it was a bit hard to think of how to describe the direction away from the pole - I thought of "northmost" but looking at an overhead view of Antartica I think the tip of the peninsula is actually closer to the pole than the other side! In the end just peninsula seemed the clearest, since like I said most people go there...
And yet (Score:2)
I still can’t find a Starbucks there.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not going to be built until the McDonald's is finished first. Billions and Billions served. I hear the iced coffee will be a big seller down there!
Does it show the edge? (Score:2)
Lovecraft (Score:2)
I was actually looking for Lovecraft references. Come on, guys and gals, you can do better than that!
who finds the spaceship (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I suggest you call Area Code 51-321-12 ** NO CARRIER
Unpossible (Score:2)
This isn't possible. The Earth is flat...Antarctica is a lie. Wake up, sheeple!
More "scientists" in on the conspiracy. How much did they pay you, Ohio State? How much?!?
.
.
.
P.S.
The above is intended as humour. If you actually believe the Earth is flat, please seek professional help.
hmmm (Score:2)
I can see Russia from there.
Re: (Score:2)
I can see Tina Fey from there too.
Re: (Score:2)
In Soviet Antarctic, we can see everything from here.
'You Can See Almost Everything.' (Score:2)
The NRO laughs... (Score:2)
150+TB? (Score:2)
--I hope they made a copy of that... On a ZFS-backed system, so they don't have to run a multi-month SHA1 or whatever checksum on the file... Good God, could you imagine the effects of bit-flip errors on that?
Re: (Score:1)
When you find the download link please copy it onto floppies and send it to me as my internet is slow.
wow (Score:2)
All for a good cause (Score:2)
I assume this is done so that Dubai can know which parts to tow away first.
Best-mapped continent? (Score:2)
1000 m resolution may have been the old standard for Antarctic maps, but first-world countries have long had much better maps than that. In the Netherlands, pretty much the whole country has been surveyed with an accuracy better than 1 m (by the Kadaster, the office that tracks land ownership).