NASA world view at night

NASA has released a new global night view of our planet as a rotating animation:

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

Amazing by itself, but there is also a hi-res version. Supposedly, the original is detailed enough to be able to see a single ship.

http://anon.nasa-global.edgesuite.net/HD_downloads/earth_night_rotate_1080.mov

One thing puzzles me – there are many, large lighted areas in Western Australia, brighter than the east coast. I thought that was mostly kangaroos and koalas, not large cities – where is the light coming from? Is there an extensive surface mining operation going on at night?

Wildfires.

Sure looks like it.

What? Koalas and Kangaroos live in cities, just like you and me.

When you look at the site it makes all our really, really pressing problems look trivial.