

NASA releases stunning photos of Earth at night - amima
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/NightLights/

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yakiv
Does anyone know why there's such a grid-like pattern of lights in the midwest
of the US?

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pash
It's the legacy of the national surveying system begun by the Land Ordinance
of 1785. [0]

Except for the thirteen original states, almost the entire country was
surveyed and platted into square "townships" [1] of six miles a side. These
were subdivided into square-mile "sections", and roads were built along
section lines. Where there were no major rivers, towns were generally
established at the intersections of these roads.

For more historical color (and stereotypes), try "Why the Midwest is Square"
[2].

0\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System>

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_township>

2\. <http://www.surveyhistory.org/why_the_midwest_is_square1.htm>

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antidoh
Also recommend Measuring America, very readable history of the American
survey.
[http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=8989073835&...](http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=8989073835&searchurl=sts%3Dt%26tn%3Dmeasuring%2Bamerica)

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D_Alex
What the heck is going on in the middle of Australia? There is NOTHING there
(not even stuff that might burn!), yet the map shows a pile of lights.

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vacri
Mining. It doesn't make sense to me that there are so many spots that are
larger than Sydney or Melbourne (sprawling cities of 4M people). I wouldn't be
surprised to see some lights there, but I highly doubt that the miners are
setting up lighting grids that rival the street lights of cities 70km by 70km
in size.

(edit: for comparison, Greater Melbourne and Greater London are roughly the
same size)

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se85
It can't be mining, otherwise we would see similar patterns in South Australia
(at least) with similar patterns likely to be visible in every other state as
well.

I'd be interested in knowing why this is so as well.

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vacri
There's similar patterns in north central Siberia (loaded with primary
resources) and a couple of other places. There's a weird bloom affect on these
spots that's not evident in populated parts of the map. You can even see the
bloom effect on the north coast of Alaska, where I'd be extremely surprised
that there's light of that level.

My guess is that they didn't quite finish the job off right and got lazy when
manipulating these areas.

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lkozma
While I find these images extremely interesting, let me add a contrarian
voice: the associations that such night-time photos bring up in me are
primarily about waste and habitat destruction.

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vasco
We humans also need a habitat.

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digeridoo
Then why do we destroy the part of the habitat that provides us with oxygen
and stable climate?

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dlisboa
"We" don't destroy our immediate habitat, "we" destroy other people's
habitats. Wasn't until recently that it became obvious that such a behavior
destroyed our own habitat regardless, and even today it's not clear to many
people why they should stop. Until then it was just a morality problem, and
capitalism has no notion of morality.

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koushikn
How bright should lights be to turn up on this? Why can't we see Aircraft
carriers/Big merchant vessels or offshore oil wells or even research stations
on the Antartic?

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pserwylo
One interesting place is down the south of Argentina, off the east coast.
Although there is no land there, there is the (almost spiral) pattern of
lights in the ocean. They seem about as bright as Melbourne, and more
expansive.

I was told once that these are fishermen, who tend to congregate in one area
at night time. I'm not sure if it is for social reasons, or business reasons,
or something else.

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stevenrace
While perhaps some are offshore oil rigs [1] - many are arrays of lights used
to attract bait fish, phytoplankton, and squid [2] in order to increase
commercial fishing yields.

[1] <http://blogs.airspacemag.com/pettit/2012/03/mar-del-fuego/>

[2] [http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/09/29/squids-
an...](http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/09/29/squids-and-light-
pollution/)

~~~
pserwylo
Ahh, thank you for the links. They are some cool pictures from space, that
really show how bright the oil rigs are.

I can take solice in the fact I was about 1/8th right about the fishermen :)

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FrojoS
It would be great to have this integrated into a mapping software lige google
maps, next to the existing day time satellite layer. For instance, this would
be useful to find good spots for watching the stars at night or to find remote
camping spots or hiking areas.

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lmkg
I've seen heatmaps of the population density of the USA before, so I shouldn't
be surprised. But seeing the city lights at night... I feel like that's a real
fact now, not just an abstraction.

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jlgreco
Interesting things in both images:

In the world map you can clearly see where North Korea is: just look for the
really clean line. Pretty depressing.

On the US map, west of New Jersey (or south-west of NYC, if that is easier to
find), you can somewhat faintly see that the light outlines the shape of the
Appalachian Mountains. Check out the Google maps relief map of Pennsylvania as
a comparison: <http://goo.gl/7xsN9>

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moreati
If you enjoy these, and you have BBC iPlayer I highly recommend the 3 part
Supersized Earth
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00zy57x/Supersized_Ear...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00zy57x/Supersized_Earth_A_Place_to_Live/)
for more scary/wow Anthropocene material.

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d0vs
And if you're in the UK.

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drakeandrews
Having lived inside London for the past year and a half, the M25 is a decent
psychological barrier between London and the rest of the country but seeing it
as a pretty distinct glowing line was something else.

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perone
Mirror ? The link is down.

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bitcoder
Google cache is working for me:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aearth...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aearthobservatory.nasa.gov%2FFeatures%2FNightLights%2F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&client=firefox-a)

The images seem to still be up, even though the site's patchy:

[http://eoimages2.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/797...](http://eoimages2.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/79765/dnb_land_ocean_ice.2012.3600x1800.jpg)
[http://eoimages2.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/798...](http://eoimages2.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/79800/dnb_united_states_lrg.jpg)

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martingordon
Does anyone know what the dark area on the FL/GA border is? I never realized
it was unpopulated and Google Maps doesn't give much information about the
area as a whole.

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quesera
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okefenokee_Swamp>

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hcarvalhoalves
Love how I'm in 2012 and my computer still chokes to open a 8MB JPEG.
Wonderful images though.

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alexpopescu
Consider yourself lucky you've actually got to see anything. My browser
already crashed 3 time before I got a chance to see anything

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somid3
its postings like these that inspire me to think that the internet and the web
is just a means of a global communication tool to create unity -- thanks.

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wololo
fyi, the mysterious cluster of lights in northwest Siberia (Yamalia) is
Gazprom

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ygmelnikova
They need to host this site on a Raspberry Pi.

