city lights
 

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...s_dmsp_big.jpg

This is off the NASA website. I'm amazed. Look how few lights there are in Russia and Australia...Look how many in western Europe, southern Mexico, Japan, eastern United States.

How do you suppose they took that picture? It's not night everywhere on earth at the same time. I guess they had to take lots of different pictures, and then put them together or something. Anyway, it turned out to look really damn cool.

many publically released nasa photos are mosaics of satellite/probe photos...

that one is a sweet one, and a classic..

A smaller version went into an Image of the Day thread some months ago - I took that large version and scaled it down to 800x600. But I can't find the thread in a quick look. I think jaguar started the thread with another whole-world satellite image.

That would make a great poster. Does anyone know of any companies that convert jpgs to posters?

No, but in this case, it's already been made into a poster!

http://www.weatherexperts.com/catalo...iid=48&start=1

Wow, it shows the true spread of population. I had no idea that the US population so heavily leaned towards the east. I thought you guys were just spread all over the place.
I love the way those "veins" of light spread east over Russia, too. It looks great.


And I think I can see my house.

...And you left the lights on again!

The common stereotype of the US population is either the highly-crowded, siren-filled city or the suburbs with all-identical houses. Neither does the real picture any sort of justice. For example, the most densely-populated US state is New Jersey - and New Jersey is 50% forest. OK, so the 50% that isn't forest is packed with people and pretty much paved over in highways. Still.

...and New Jersey is 50% forest...

...but for how long?

- Pie

Well, the original english settlers sailed across the atlantic and settled on the east coast. So that's where most of the people in America collected over the course of the years, until trains came into being, of course. But hey, maybe the decendants of the original settlers just didn't feel like moving.

BTW - thanks for the poster link. I am going to seriously consider getting that!

Well...if you like the citiy lights composite, consider looking in the other direction. This one's been my Desktop 1 wallpaper for quite some time now. (And the people's Republic of New Jersey does *not* make a good example of the US as a whole) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...linger_big.jpg

ooooo.......purrrttttyyyy

I asked my mom for this poster for christmas and actually got it! Now I have a poster of an image of the day. How cool is that?

Welcome back. I was asking about you just the other day. Where you been?

The other thread was http://www.cellar.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=419

all hail Count Zero.