Space Radar Image of La Paz, Bolivia

This is an image of the Bolivian capital city of La Paz that was created using three radar frequencies. La Paz sits at the edge of the Altiplano, the high inland plateau between the Cordillera Occidental and Cordillera Oriental belts of the Andes Mountains in South America. Part of the Cordillera Oriental mountains are seen on the right side (northeast) of this image. The bright areas at the top of the mountains are most likely the result of year-round snow cover. Glacier-carved valleys drain the mountain areas. The dark lines left of center are Kennedy Airport near the northwestern part of the city.

The image was acquired by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on April 18, 1994. The image is centered at 16.25 degrees south latitude, 68.1 degrees west longitude. The area shown is approximately 35 kilometers by 16 kilometers (22 miles by 10 miles). North is toward the upper right. Colors are assigned to different frequencies and polarizations of the radar as follows: red is L-band horizontally transmitted, horizontally received; green is C-band horizontally transmitted, vertically received; and blue is X-band vertically transmitted, vertically received. SIR-C/X-SAR, a joint mission of the German, Italian and United States space agencies, is part of NASA's program called Mission to Planet Earth.