ruminations on home

[sonny]

we come out of the dark to share and to hope, together

NASA - NASA-NOAA Satellite Reveals New Views of Earth at Night

[Mabouya]

Cool.

It's interesting how you can see what must be the Nile in Egypt.

Also, the interior of western Australia is more heavily populated than I would have guessed.

Finally, I bet you could somewhat accurately predict an area's poverty by dividing the population density a given area by the amount of light emitted by that area:

Degree of Poverty = Population Density / Light Density. I don't know if it would be linear or not, but the relationship has to be proportional.

[false_aesthetic]

I would love to relocate based on this map.

[Saab2000]

Look for North Korea.....

[vertical_doug]

I think Somalia on the horn of Africa has them beat.

[doctor855]

Colorado/Utah looks to be about right.

[davids]

China is interesting - look at that arc of light running from Iran to northeastern China.

And India... Brighter than I would have thought.

Thanks for sharing this. It's very cool.

[Eddie]

I find it very interesting that the largest "sprawl of light" in the US appears to be Atlanta, am I correct? Perhaps this is on account of the scaling of the map as it appears in two rather than three dimensions. Also, coverage of the Gulf Coast of FL up through Orlando is so much more spread out than the more population dense areas of SE FL, which is interesting.

Check out that speck of Nassau out there in the ocean, and Bermuda to the northeast. Havana throwing out some light, and Puerto Rico quite a bit. Man, I could study these maps for hours.

[davids]

I find it very interesting that the largest "sprawl of light" in the US appears to be Atlanta, am I correct? Perhaps this is on account of the scaling of the map as it appears in two rather than three dimensions. Also, coverage of the Gulf Coast of FL up through Orlando is so much more spread out than the more population dense areas of SE FL, which is interesting.

Check out that speck of Nassau out there in the ocean, and Bermuda to the northeast. Havana throwing out some light, and Puerto Rico quite a bit. Man, I could study these maps for hours.

K,

This looks like a better-detailed US map:

[ChristopherG]

Really interesting, thanks for posting this.

[RickM]

I find it very interesting that the largest "sprawl of light" in the US appears to be Atlanta, am I correct?

Looks to be the Boston/NYC/Phila corridor to my eye.

[caleb]

What in the world is the big cluster of light in central Asia, 700-1000 miles north of the northern tip of India? I thought it might be Moscow, but it's too far east. Could it be Astana? Unless the scale is skewed, its 200-250 miles across.

[rowdyhillrambler]

That is an awesome photo.
What is the island about 4:00 off of the southern tip of florida?

[RickM]

That is an awesome photo.
What is the island about 4:00 off of the southern tip of florida?

Bahamas?

[rowdyhillrambler]

Thats kind of what i thought, i didn't realize it was that heavily populated.

[RickM]

What in the world is the big cluster of light in central Asia, 700-1000 miles north of the northern tip of India? I thought it might be Moscow, but it's too far east. Could it be Astana? Unless the scale is skewed, its 200-250 miles across.

Bigger then just Astana....but that sure looks to be Kazakhstan. Who the heck knows what's going on there. I get some perverse comfort seeing that the majority of earth's surface is dark at night.

[sonny]

[...] sprawl [...] Atlanta

don't even remind me

[Matthew Strongin]

Thats kind of what i thought, i didn't realize it was that heavily populated.

It's mostly cruise ships in the port.

[Todd Amunrud]

Is that area in what looks like North Dakota just from new oil/gas endeavors? Or is that in Canada? My sense of distance in that area seems skewed.

K,

This looks like a better-detailed US map:

[SteveP]

very cool stuff