( CNN ) -- NASA and Japan improved our world view this week , or at least our view of the world . This image using ASTER imagery shows the Himalayan glaciers in Bhutan . The American space agency and Japan 's Ministry of Economy , Trade and Industry have released a new digital topographic map of Earth that accurately portrays more of our planet than ever before . The new map consists of 1.3 million images taken by NASA 's Terra satellite that have been pieced together to form a unified picture of the planet . The images were taken by a Japanese imaging instrument called the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer , or ASTER . `` This is the most complete , consistent global digital elevation data yet made available to the world , '' said Woody Turner , a program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington . The map covers more than 99 percent of Earth 's land mass from north of the Arctic Circle to south of the Antarctic Circle . During February 2000 , space shuttle Endeavour mapped about 80 percent of the planet 's surface . `` The ASTER data fill in many of the voids in the shuttle mission 's data , such as in very steep terrains and in some deserts , '' said Michael Kobrick , a shuttle project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena , California , which manages the program . `` NASA is working to combine '' the new data with that from the shuttle and other sources `` to produce an even better global topographic map . ''
New digital topographic map reveals more of Earth than ever before . Images were taken by Japanese imaging instrument on NASA satellite . Score: 7