   This is the radar reflectance image produced by the SRTM mission. It is the best available snapshot of the surface of the earth, being the highest resolution image collected in the shortest ammount of time, with near-global 30m coverage collected during an 11-day Endeavour mission, in February of 2000. Five basic bands are available as WMS styles, ss1, ss2, ss3 and ss4 being SRTM image subswath averages, the "all" style being an average of the four subswath composites. The "default" style is derived from the "all" band, using an arbitrary color map to make more detail visible. The subswath composites also available as WMS bands, band 0 correspoinding to ss1, 1 to "ss2", 2 to "ss3", 3 to "ss4" and 5 to "all". A radar image has little in common with a visual image, depending mostly on the material and orientation of the object. Areas with low detail such as lakes and sand tend to have no reflection, and very steep terrain can obscure certain areas from the side look ing SRTM instrument, both fenomena generating voids in the SRTM reflectance image. Urban areas tend to have stronger reflectance. The banding artifacts still visible in the images are the result of the combination of data from multiple orbits or are intrinsic to the SRTM instrument.       