The “Black” Marble

NASA released some beautiful new views of our planet “in the dark” today, here’s a link to still images and animations:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/earth-at-night.html

I’ve noticed that link has been extremely slow or even unresponsive at times today, so be patient.  It seems to be better now that East Coast folks have gone to sleep.

Scientists are using these new nighttime images of Earth’s dark side to gain insight on human activity and poorly understood natural events.  You can also:

• Read an Earth Observatory feature about the study of nighttime lights.
• Read a NASA press release about the new capability.
• Download hemisphere views and animations.
• Download the flat global map.
• Interactively browse the city lights map at full resolution.
• Download video of the Suomi NPP satellite.

 Enjoy!

Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen