The Earth spins at night

22 days of data from the Suomi NPP satellite went into making this beautiful and eerie view of the Earth at night, spinning in a black sky. The satellite can see in the visible and near-infrared at high sensitivity, able to map city lights, fires, and even moonlit weather. This animation is made from real images, mapped onto the previously existing Blue Marble images to make the view more realistic.

Blog post with more info: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astron...

Credits:
Video: NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC
http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/...

Music: Kevin MacLeod, "Epic Unease", http://www.Incompetech.com

• Category

  Science & Technology

[vitor6825]

......SPAAAAAAAAACE

[straffsats]

It's bushfires. And the picture is made up of several pictures taken at different times. So one picture includes the fires at one spot, and another picture at another spot (because it's spread), and when combined the fires look immense.

[starmirth]

So basically, the earth is a giant music box whose spinning causes waves of ominous music. No wonder aliens have avoided us so far.

[Einstreit]

I never thought there was so much life in the australian desert.

[NKTJh]

Not really.

[darkmistq]

the earth is spining the opposite way

[sketts22]

Awesome video! What's with the Death Star music though??!

[SpreadingtheMuse]

Would've thought india's population would have been at the ocean, not the mountains

[Missstone777]

They're bushfires ninteenseventyfree

[ninteenseventyfree]

That's quite disturbing to see how much light is coming from the north-east of Western Australia. There is no big population livin in that area. It can only be mining operations.