Washington, D.C.
Photo ID: P-46521
November 30, 1995
The city of Washington, D.C., is shown is this space radar image.
Images like these are useful tools for urban planners and
managers, who use them to map and monitor land use patterns.
Downtown Washington is the bright area between the Potomac (upper
center to lower left) and Anacostia (middle right) rivers. The
dark cross shape that is formed by the National Mall, Tidal
Basin, the White House and Ellipse is seen in the center of the
image.
Arlington National Cemetery is the dark blue area on the Virginia
(left) side of the Potomac River near the center of the image.
The Pentagon is visible in bright white and red, south of the
cemetery. Due to the alignment of the radar and the streets,
the avenues that form the boundary between Washington and
Maryland appear as bright red lines in the top, right and bottom
parts of the image, parallel to the image borders. This image is
centered at 38.85 degrees north latitude, 77.05 degrees west
longitude. North is toward the upper right. The area shown is
approximately 29 km by 26 km (18 miles by 16 miles). Colors are
assigned to different frequencies and polarizations of the radar
as follows: Red is the L-band horizontally transmitted,
horizontally received; green is the L-band horizontally
transmitted, vertically received; blue is the C-band horizontally
transmitted, vertically received. The image was acquired by the
Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture (SIR-C/X-
SAR) imaging radar when it flew aboard the space shuttle
Endeavour on April 18, 1994. SIR-C/X-SAR, a joint mission of the
German, Italian and United States space agencies, is part of
NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program.
![[WASHINGTON, DC]](DC46521.GIF)