MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
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PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109.  TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

IMAGE CAPTION                      P-49592bc
                                   February 12, 1998
                                   Kapilapura mound/AIRSAR

This pair of images was created with data taken by NASA's 
Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) of the Angkor Wat 
temple area in Cambodia.  The image on the left is a false-color 
radar image, while the image on the right shows topography data 
made while AIRSAR was being flown in its interferometric mode. 
Every tourist to the ancient city visits Angkor Wat but close by, 
yet unknown, is this Kapilapura mound shown in the upper right 
corner.  The mound was spotted by JPL scientists using the radar 
data and led archaeologists to survey the area, which is now a 
deserted forest. The Angkor Wat temple (center of each image) and 
surrounding moat (large dark rectangle) show up clearly on both 
images.  Forested areas appear yellow on the radar image; cleared 
areas, including the vegetation-free moat and the area around the 
temple, appear blue.  On the topography image (right), each color 
cycle, for example from green to green, represents a 20-meter 
(66-foot) change in elevation. The Kapilapura mound is the bright 
yellow-purple spot in the upper right. These data show that the 
Angkor Wat temple is approximately 27 meters (81 feet) high 
whereas the mound is only 6 meters (19 feet) high. Field checks 
of the mound area in December 1997 revealed the remains of 
several temples neglected since cursory French visits in 1904 and 
1911 to record inscriptions. The 10th-century inscriptions 
testify to long term occupation of Angkor. In the same way, 
villagers occupied the site, which became the city of Angkor 
before the first temple was built in the 7th century AD.  The 
area shown in both images is 1.25 kilometers by 1.3 kilometers 
(0.7 miles by 0.8 miles).  These data were collected on December 
6, 1996 as part of AIRSAR's mission to the Pacific Rim.  The 
AIRSAR instrument flies onboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft.

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