A view from space of the Earth at night assembled from multiple images acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 orbits and terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands. The nighttime view of Earth in visible light was made possible by the Òday-night bandÓ of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite.
A view from space of the Earth at night assembled from multiple images acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 orbits and terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands. The nighttime view of Earth in visible light was made possible by the Òday-night bandÓ of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as gas flares, auroras, wildfires, city lights, and reflected moonlight. In this case, auroras, fires, and other stray light have been removed to emphasize the city lights.
Size: 12150px × 6075px
Photo credit: © NASA Photo / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: darkness, earth, flat, greenbelt, horizontal, image, imager, inverse, land, lights, map, maryland, mercator, nasa, night, npp, projection, space, suomi, surface, toroid, viirs
