Earth in black

[Steep]

From NASAs Suomi satellite via the BBC website, the earth at night made up from a number of cloudless high res images..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20621177

Other images and vids direct from the NASA Suomi site http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/earth-at-night.html

If you have enough processing power I recommend downloading the 384mb TIF image from this page, the detail is fantastic! http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=79765

 

[steveo_mcg]

Its always interesting observing the difference between West Europe and Africa!

 

[ukaskew]

Really interesting, you can work out the densely lit cities obviously, but why is almost all of Belgium so well lit, do they have lights on every road? Aside from the Nile it's one of the brightest clumps on the entire globe.

Similar situation in South Wales when you get in close, far brighter than the population there would suggest it should be.

 

[Steep]

Belgium is less than half the size of Scotland but has double the population, it's highly industrialised and is Europe's transport hub.

 

[Willid1]

I note you can make out the M25!!

D

 

[Steep]

Have a look at Moscow, that's always a eye opener the way they built the city in concentric rings for defensive purposes, with the spokes of major roads leading in from all parts of the country, again so that troops could access the capital quickly from anywhere.