The rugged Southern Alps extend some 650 kilometers along
the western side of New Zealand's South Island. The mountains
are often obscured by clouds, which is probably why the Maoris
called New Zealand "Aotearoa", the long white cloud. The higher
peaks are snow-covered all year round. Westerly winds bring clouds
that drop over 500 centimeters of rain annually on luxuriant rain
forest along the west coast. The drier eastern seaboard is home to
the majority of the island's population.
This pair of MISR images is from April 13, 2000 (Terra orbit 1712).
The upper image is a natural color view from the instrument's
vertical-viewing (nadir) camera. It is presented at a resolution of
550 meters per pixel. The lower image is a stereo anaglyph generated
from the instrument's 46-degree and 26-degree forward-viewing cameras,
and is presented at 275-meter per pixel resolution to show the portion
of the image containing the Southern Alps in greater detail. Viewing the
anaglyph in 3-D requires the use of red/blue glasses with the red
filter over your left eye. To facilitate stereoscopic viewing, both
images have been oriented with north at the left.
The tallest mountain in the Southern Alps is Mt. Cook, at an
elevation of 3754 meters. Its snow-covered peak is visible to the
left of center in each of these MISR images. From the high peaks,
glaciers have gouged long, slender mountain lakes and coastal fiords.
Immediately to the southeast of Mt. Cook (to the right in these images),
the glacial pale-blue water of Lake Pukaki stands out. Further to the south
in adjacent valleys you can easily see Lakes Hawea and Wanaka, between
which (though not visible here) is the Haast Pass Road, the most southerly
of the few links between the east and west coast road systems. Further to
the south is the prominent "S" shape of Lake Wakatipu, 83 kilometers long,
on the northern shore of which is Queenstown, the principal resort town of
the island. The remote and spectacular Fiordland National Park, which
occupies the far southwest of the island, is largely under cloud.
Prominent along the east coast are the Canterbury Plains, approximately
180 kilometers long and extending inland from the coast to the
foothills of the Southern Alps. This is the largest area of flat
land in New Zealand, and a rich agricultural region renowned for its
wheat, wool, and livestock. Here the distance between the east and west
coasts is little more than 150 kilometers.
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team.
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