Most stunning pictures of the Earth by night
Following the NASAs Blue Marble Project, new HD images of the earth were released this week.
This project is now called Black Marble.
What is the difference between the two you might ask?
Well, this new project only captures night-time views of the Earth!
The Suomi NPP satellite completed 312 orbits and gathered 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of the Earth’s land surface.
This satellite is capable of detecting light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, gas flares, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight.
This view gives us a clear understanding of the economic situation of Asian countries. Most lights come from the biggest economic areas whereas Mongolia and the Tibetan Plateau are in the dark.
There is a clear gap between the East and the West of the USA. The East is in the light and the West (apart from the border) is in the dark. We can clearly see the transport network in the Eastern part of the States.
Besides the Nile River and its large delta that empties in the Mediterranean Sea, and a few other areas in South Africa and the Maghreb, most of the continent is plunged into darkness.
From East to West, the European continent shows an impressive homogeneity with urban areas being slightly more illuminated than other areas.
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