The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area in Texas is shown on this image collected by the C-band radar of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). On this radar image, smooth areas, such as lakes, roads and airport runways appear dark. Rougher features, such as buildings and trees, appear bright. Downtown Dallas is the bright area at the center of the image, alongside the dark linear floodway of the Trinity River. Dark linear runways of two airports are also seen: Love Field near downtown Dallas in the image center, and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in the upper left corner. The semi-circular terminal buildings of the international airport can also be seen in the area between the runways. Several large lakes, including Lake Ray Hubbard (upper right) and Joe Pool Lake (lower left) are also seen. Images like these, along with the SRTM topographic data, will be used by urban planners to study and monitor land use, and update maps and geographic information systems for the area. This image represents just 4 seconds of data collection time by the SRTM instrument. The overall diagonal linear pattern is a data processing artifact due to the quick turn-around browse nature of this image. These artifacts will be removed with further data processing.

Source: NASA