# NASA world view at night

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-world-view-at-night/645569>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [December 30, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-world-view-at-night/645569 "2012-12-30T14:26:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-world-view-at-night/645569/1 "2012-12-30T14:26:51Z")

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

> [@](#):
>
> This new global view and animation of Earth’s city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and 13 days in October 2012. It took 312 orbits to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth’s land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet.

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?

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**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-world-view-at-night/645569/2 "2012-12-30T15:09:49Z")

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> [@Musicat](#):
>
> 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.

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**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-world-view-at-night/645569/3 "2012-12-30T15:59:11Z")

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> [@cmyk](#):
>
> Wildfires.

[Sure looks like it.](http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2012/12/australias-city-light-pollution-dwarfed-its-blazing-wildfires/4236/)

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**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-world-view-at-night/645569/4 "2012-12-30T18:36:20Z")

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

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**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-world-view-at-night/645569/5 "2013-01-01T18:07:55Z")

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