Scientists have unveiled an unprecedented new look at our planet at night, while attending the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco that took place over the last few days.
“For all the reasons that we need to see Earth during the day, we also need to see Earth at night,” said Steve Miller, a researcher at NOAA’s Colorado State University Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. “Unlike humans, the Earth never sleeps.”
Utilizing new technology made possible by VIIRS, nighttime views of the earth in magnificent detail are possible as never before. As the NASA website explains, “Unlike a camera that captures a picture in one exposure, the day-night band produces an image by repeatedly scanning a scene and resolving it as millions of individual pixels. Then, the day-night band reviews the amount of light in each pixel. If it is very bright, a low-gain mode prevents the pixel from oversaturating. If the pixel is very dark, the signal is amplified.”
The new family of pictures, taken from April to November 2012, show nighttime views places including the entire USA, South America’s Atlantic coast, Korea and the Yellow Sea, the Nile delta, Persian Gulk, California coast, London, South Asia as well as the whole view of eastern Asia and Australasia, in which Nanjing is situated not far from centre!
The photos make for wonderful desktop pictures that perhaps serve as a reminder of home. Ultra-high resolution versions of the photos are available for download from the NASA website.
