St. Louis, Missouri
Photo ID: P-46524
March 28, 1996
This is a spaceborne radar image of the area surrounding St.
Louis, Missouri, where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers come
together. The city of St. Louis is the bright gold area within a
bend in the Mississippi River at the lower center of the image.
The rivers show up as dark blue sinuous lines. Urbanized areas
appear bright gold and forested areas are shown as a brownish
color. Several bridges can be seen spanning the river near
downtown St. Louis. The Missouri River flows east, from left to
right, across the center of the image, and meets the Mississippi
River, which flows from top to bottom of the image. A small
stretch of the Illinois River is shown at the top of the image
where it merges with the Mississippi. The Mississippi forms the
state boundary between Illinois (to the right) and Missouri (to
the left). Flat farmland areas within the river floodplains
appear blue on the image. The major roadways that pass through
the area can be seen radiating out from, and encircling, the city
of St. Louis. These highways, the rivers and the bridges help
maintain St. Louis' reputation as the "GATEWAY TO THE WEST."
This image was acquired by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) on April 17, 1994, onboard
the space shuttle Endeavour. The image is 74 kilometers by 92
kilometers (46 miles by 57 miles) and is centered at 38.75
degrees nouth latitude, 90.38 degrees west longitude. North is
toward the upper right. The colors are assigned to different
radar frequencies and polarizations as follows: red is L-band,
horizontally transmitted and received; green is C-band,
horizontally transmitted and received; and blue is the ratio of
L-band and C-band, horizontally transmitted and received. SIR-
C/X-SAR, a joint mission of the German, Italian and United States
space agencies, is part of NASA's program to study Earth and its
environment, known as the Office of Mission to Planet Earth.
![[ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI]](STLOUIS.GIF)