Satellite Captures "Black Marble" View of Earth at Night...

[Indi Guy]

Source: Reuters

Almost 40 years to the day after the Apollo 17 crew snapped the famed "blue marble" image of Earth floating in space on December 7, 1972, NASA has unveiled "black marble" video views of the planet by night.

The cloud-free pictures, taken with a high-resolution visible and infrared imager aboard a NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite, capture the night lights of Earth in unprecedented detail.

The sensor can capture the equivalent of three low-light images simultaneously, giving researchers the opportunity to study Earth's atmosphere, land and oceans at night.

"It's very high-quality data," NOAA scientist Christopher Elvidge told reporters at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco...

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/06/us-space-earth-idUSBRE8B507120121206

---

Click on pic for NASA's images, animations, and slideshow...

[Ash_F]

1. Beautiful...in a scary sort of way.

Thank you for sharing.

[Suich]

14. Exactly the same thought I had!

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

2. You can overlay the red/blue counties map over that pic

and quickly see that the GOP can only win places where nobody lives.

[lbrtbell]

39. As a red-state Democrat

I resent that.

Just because we choose to live outside cities doesn't make us "nobody". We're just people who prefer lives without high crime and pollution.

[sakabatou]

3. Africa has very little city light

Hardly any except some spots

[Indi Guy]

8. Yeah...

...looks like the Nile delta is where all the action is in Africa. Check out this pic which include some of Israel...

[sakabatou]

41. The Nile, as well as other port cities

is where the action is. But if you zoom out to the world, the light from the continent is small.

[Odin2005]

56. You can see the Fayyum oasis sticking out like a sore thumb.

It's that -leaf-shaped lobe extending west of the river SW of Cairo.

[NoOneMan]

4. That's about when you need to shake the jar and let the other kernels colonize

[AverageJoe90]

19. Uh, what now? n/t

[TwilightGardener]

5. Love the faint grid pattern in the Midwest.

[JimDandy]

11. Yep-the Township and Range system

accounts for that. Roads (with lights) were established along the straight property lines. To see from space these clear lines of ownership of earth is surreal.

[Jimbo S]

38. Northwest Ordinance of 1787

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance

When passed in New York in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance showed the influence of Jefferson. It called for dividing the territory into gridded townships, so that once the lands were surveyed, they could be sold to individuals and speculative land companies. This would provide both a new source of federal government revenue and an orderly pattern for future settlement.

[Deep13]

6. ugh, light pollution. nt

[Indi Guy]

10. Bah...

...humbug.

[DreamGypsy]

7. Yikes!

Confirms our decision to stay west of the Mississippi.

All East Coast bright lighters, Californicators, and Portlandians, please stay where you live.

OK, I'll confess, I'm a sometime Portlandian...but I use 20w compact fluorescents. Nobody's perfect, and none of us are good.

[sakabatou]

42. "Californicators..."

We're not that sexual, are we?

[DreamGypsy]

46. I first heard the word...

... Calif..nicator about 20 years ago when I moved from California (Bay Area) to Oregon. Even back then I think the term was used with a certain fondness. Still is - we love our neighbors to the south. No offense intended, I hope none taken. You do have a lot of lights though.

My favorite recent comment about California and sex was made by Geoffrey Nunberg, who is a professor at Berkeley and author of the book Assent of the A-Word: Assholism the First 65 Years. In the preface he says something like (I couldn't find the exact quote):

I come from Berkeley, where we will defend to the death your right to do whatever you want in the privacy of your bedroom, as long as you don't smoke afterward.

Hey, what's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

[Journeyman]

9. If you study this carefully, it proves White mostly voted for Obama, Black mostly for Romney. . .

[JimDandy]

12. LOL

Clever!

[Hyper_Eye]

13. Gee I wonder where all the people live. n/t

[leveymg]

15. How many degrees have we heated the earth to do this?

[wtmusic]

17. There could be much more than this, if atmospheric CO2 was where it was 100 years ago.

All the heat energy would dissipate into space.

[AverageJoe90]

21. About .5*C. =)

(Yes, Spencer is a skeptic, btw, but the UAH data is genuine, though I believe the intrepretation is a bit off.)

[wtmusic]

16. Damn! I knew I left my porch light on.

[calimary]

18. Beautiful!

Really remarkable! Thank you for posting this, Indi Guy!

[Indi Guy]

20. My pleasure...

...Nice break from politics eh?

[calimary]

48. Yeah, NO KIDDING. And a truly marvelous image.

Wish it would remind everybody, everywhere, to GET ALONG, DAMMIT!!! And TAKE CARE OF THIS ONE LITTLE PLANET WE HAVE. It's this one-and-only place to live that all of us terrestrial, carbon-based lifeforms have in the known universe.

[Indi Guy]

49. As bad as things appear...

...I'm very optimistic about the future. Worldwide, things are trending toward harmony (regardless of the well known & publicized pockets of resistance {including D.C.}.
________________________________________________________

For more NASA photos & multimedia:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/earth-at-night.html and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/sets/72157632175125121/with/8246893143/ (I highly recommend)

[calimary]

50. Love these!

Remarkable!

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. What's going on in Western Australia?

They have a huge amount of light coming from the middle of the desert, rather than from population centres.

[Paulie]

25. Mining?

perhaps?

[lunatica]

27. If you look at all the slide show it says they're fires.

It also shows that the solid lights along the Nile River are river boats.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. Thanks - I'd missed that video at the bottom of their page

I didn't know that area of Australia had enough vegetation to sustain wildfires like that.

[Champion Jack]

31. Extraction?

[lunatica]

33. wild fires

[Samjm]

51. Spot Johannesburg

The one big bright spot on the African continent.... (other than up near the Mediterranean / Gulf areas)

[Hekate]

52. Wildfires, it says

The place burns. As a Californian, I sympathize.

[Kurovski]

23. we used to reserve the word "awesome" for just this very thing!

K&R & thnx!

[DemoTex]

24. I'm impressed with the darkness in the West, not the light in the East.

The area around the fire lookout tower that I staff between May and October is incredibly dark, but I knew that. In fact, I plan on doing a whole lot more night photography in the high desert wilderness (of Oregon) this coming fire season.

[lunatica]

28. I can't wait! I love your photographs!

[Evasporque]

26. wtf is up with North Dakota...?? The biggest blob of light in northern plains...

That must be all the fracking going on up there....that can't be good in the long run....

I went to the high res version (7mb one) and indeed it is light from western North Dakota. A once....empty place.

[progressoid]

29. I just downloaded the 97 mb version.

And then overlaid a map of the US. I think you're right, it is the oil fields up there.

I was in Bismark last year and talked to people that said the Williston area is a industrial town now 24 hours a day.

[Indi Guy]

44. Is that oil or natural gas? n/t

[progressoid]

45. Mostly oil

But some gas too. Lots of fracking.

It's up in that NW corner of ND and into Canada.

https://www.dmr.nd.gov/OaGIMS/viewer.htm

[Indi Guy]

47. Thanks...

Checkout this current anti-fracking thread in LBN - http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014328254

[Soundman]

32. Thanks for the post!

I love those kinds of photos. On the sad side though, it shows me why it is futile to buy a better telescope here in central ohio. Sigh....

[Doctor_J]

34. In the rotating view, the flyover states are pretty much dark

Tell me again, why do they get to vote?

[Coyotl]

35. Notice the giant megapolis in North Dakota, 100 miles across? NOT a city!

All those lights are polluting natural gas fires burning into the atmosphere without pollution control, heating the atmosphere too.

[Plucketeer]

36. Look at the two Koreas!

What a STARK difference. And we know too well, what the cause of that difference is. It's not the topography.

[Ter]

37. Them commies

[Indi Guy]

40. Pretty dramatic isn't it...

Notice the little smudge of light coming from N. Korean capitol Pyongyang, compared to how the south is all lit up.

[Indi Guy]

43. NASA's released photos can be seen here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/sets/72157632175125121/with/8246893143/

After clicking on the thumbnail - right click on the pic - select "original" and you'll get a page with links to the pic in various sizes. Click the size you want to view. ...Also, the pics here are JPEGs which you can right click on & get the url for posting.

[Hekate]

53. Awesome, and kind of scary

It's gorgeous, and for some reason is giving me chills. Just amazing.
Thanks so much -- I'm sending the link on.

Hekate

[4dsc]

54. Climate change before your eyes

talk about waste. When I look at this photo I see millions of lights that don't need to be turn on and wonder how much coal we need to burn to keep them lit.

Very sad.

[Odin2005]

55. Wow, one can see the grid pattern in the Plains states.

Those very regular dots must be the county seats.