In daylight our big blue marble is all land, oceans and clouds. But the night – is electric.
This view of Earth at night is a cloud-free view from space as acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Satellite (Suomi NPP). A joint program by NASA and NOAA, Suomi NPP captured this nighttime image by the satellite’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The day-night band on VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, gas flares, and wildfires. This new image is a composite of data acquired over nine days in April and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 satellite orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of land surface.
This video uses the Earth at night view created by NASA’s Earth Observatory with data processed by and combined with a version of the Earth Observatory’s Blue Marble: Next Generation.
Animators: Trent L. Schindler (USRA)
Robert Simmon (Sigma Space Corporation)
Jesse Allen (Sigma Space Corporation)
Video Editor: Kayvon Sharghi (USRA)
Narrator: Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
Producers: Kayvon Sharghi (USRA)
Mike Carlowicz (Sigma Space Corporation)
Scientist: Christopher Elvidge (NOAA/NGDC)
Writer: Aries Keck (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
