Nasa releases most complete map

Nasa has released what it says is the most complete map of the world ever to be produced, covering 99 per cent of the Earth's surface.

A joint project with the Japanese government, the map was put together using nearly 1.3 million images taken by Nasa's Terra spacecraft.

The images were taken by the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) instrument aboard the Terra spacecraft.

"This is the most complete, consistent global digital elevation data yet made available to the world," said Woody Turner, Aster program scientist at Nasa Headquarters in Washington.

"This unique global set of data will serve users and researchers from a wide array of disciplines that need elevation and terrain information," Turner continued.

The map will be free for anyone to download, Nasa said.

However, Nasa's Aster page isn't loading properly at the time of writing, instead redirecting to a page containing the error message "Too many client tasks", suggesting that it has been inundated with traffic.