The Shape of the Earth, Measured from Space

The science

In February 2000, the Space Shuttle Endeavour spent eleven days orbiting Earth with a radar system built to do one thing: measure the height of the land below. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, run by NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, produced the first near-global, high-resolution elevation model of the planet – down to 30 meters per pixel, later refined with NASA's ASTER data.

It transformed earth science. Almost every terrain map, flood model and topographic study since draws on this dataset.

How we turned it into a print

We translated the elevation data into topographic contour lines: colored bands mark height above sea level, while the density of lines shows steepness. The great mountain systems leap out – the Himalayas, the Andes, the Alps – as tight, dramatic knots of line, while flat countries like Denmark and the Netherlands almost disappear. It is the planet drawn as pure relief.

The print

From our Spectrum collection, The World as Valleys and Hills is printed on premium paper in 70x50 cm and 100x70 cm. Data source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.