Earth at Night
Earth at Night
Credit: C. Mayhew & R. Simmon (
NASA/
GSFC),
NOAA/
NGDC,
DMSP Digital Archive
Explanation: This is what the
Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite
country or
city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made
lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of
Europe, the eastern
United States, and
Japan. Many large cities are located near
rivers or
oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly
dark areas include the central parts of
South America,
Africa,
Asia, and
Australia. The
above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the orbiting
DMSP satellites.
(Editor's note: This image has generated many print requests. Unfortunately, we do not sell prints. However, a high-resolution digital version of the image is available
here.