Color shaded relief image shows the extent of digital elevation data for Africa recently released by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, launched in 2000. In this index map color-coding is directly related to topographic height, with brown and yellow at the lower elevations, rising through green, to white at the highest elevations. Blue areas on the map represent water within the mapped tiles, each of which includes shorelines or islands.