Two new images of the Santa Barbara area from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission highlight the region's spectacular scenery. One view looks northeast along the coast from the Goleta Valley in the foreground to snow-capped Mount Abel, an area sometimes called "America's Riviera." The other image shows the Cuyama River winding down the Cuyama Valley at the foot of the Caliente Range.
These two new images along with five other recently released images showing some of California's dramatic topography from the Carrizo Plain in the north to Ventura in the south are collected on a new clickable map available online at:
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/california_clickmap1.html .
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which flew onboard Space Shuttle Endeavour last February, gathered topographic elevation data over approximately 80 percent of Earth's land mass during its 10-day flight. The results of the mission will be the most extensive high-resolution database of Earth's topography.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.