APOD 2.6 Earth at Night

7 Dec 2012 Earth at Night

This image is a combination of pictures taken over 9 days in April and 13 days in October of 2012.  There is no cloud coverage blocking any portion of this image which took 312 orbits to acquire.  The technology used to take these pictures is known as VIIRS which is a radiometer and is the most advanced piece of technology used to date to collect this type of nighttime image.  

I found this image very interesting because it shows the concentrations of cities and clearly demonstrates which countries use the most power at night and contribute the most to the growing problem of light pollution.  The Eastern portion of the United States as well as parts of Europe and China seem to be lit up the most.  I have seen similar images of Earth from space at night but never with this much clarity and detail.  

This image is obviously superior to past night-time images of the Earth which can be viewed here:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/NightLights/