"These images give us incredibly detailed views of the Antarctic ice sheet surface and serve as maps for many locations that have never been mapped," said Robert Bindschadler of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "The resolution sensitivity of the Landsat sensor is well beyond that of even the most state-of-the-art digital camera. It's able to record subtle variations in the ice sheet's surface that tell us more about ice sheet features, the flow of the ice sheet and changes in the ice sheet's surface."
The data used to create the map came from the Landsat 7 satellite's Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus sensor. Image processing using specialized software and image stacking enabled a team at the US Geological Survey Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) to produce a true-colour, nearly cloud-free view of most of Antarctica. Researchers at the British Antarctic Survey, meanwhile, are generating the map for the Antarctic Peninsula region.
For the areas around the geographic South Pole that Landsat 7 does not cover, the scientists will use images from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites, possibly along with a small amount of radar data.
The researchers will continue to release images to the website over the next few months.
"Using the web portal, scientists as well as students, teachers and others will be able to zoom in to a specific Antarctic region and adjust for various levels of detail," said Bindschadler. "This will be like having a room with a tremendous view, a detailed view from space aboard Landsat to peer down as if you were just above the ice sheet's surface."