This image of the United States at night is a composite of data taken by the VIIRS instrument aboard the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012.
Pretty cool, isn't it? Learn more directly from the NASA site: HERE
Wired.com published a nice series of these photos HERE which show more areas of the planet at night.
So, where would you rather be living: in the midst of bright lights or in the relative darkness?
As for me, I'm glad I'm in one of the "dimmer" areas, not dark just dimmer.
I am a neophyte astronomer, hoping that I can make time available to study the vast universe surrounding us, and I also thoroughly enjoy time-lapse video. Well, this one combines the two with lovely music...a fascinating and absolutely beautiful combination.
This video's creator/photographer is Alessandro Della Bella, a professional photographer living in Switzerland, most if not all of the scenes are in that part of the world. It is certainly beautiful country.
I highly suggest watching in HD expanded to full screen for your best experience. Enjoy!
Here's a fantastic interactive 360° color panorama of Curiosity rover and the surrounding Martian landscape beamed back from the vehicle. Pretty amazing stuff!
Nice job by Andrew Bodrov putting this together.
Link directly to the original web page and image HERE.
I'm sure you know of the incredible journey just completed by "Curiosity" winding up safely on the surface of Mars, a mere 140 million miles from Earth, give or take a few. I came across this video and thought it did a great job of illustrating what took place during the final, white-knuckle portion of that mission.
This collection of various NASA animation, telemetry data, onboard vehicle instrumentation, incident audio, and JPL footage was put together beautifully by film critic and film maker Brandon Fibbs.
Pretty amazing "2001: Space Odyssey" stuff. Congratulations to the great work by the team at the Jet Propulsion Lab; the first and most critical part of the mission was accomplished, but the work is far from over.
Being the Space Junkie I've mentioned previously, this kind of image and description just boggles the mind. The Hubble Telescope, still on the job "up there", snapped this image in 1995. Supposedly it is the deepest (into space) visible light image ever made. There's LOTS up there, folks.
So, what do you think? Are we Earthlings the only form of intelligent life around? We certainly have room for a lot more!
Whatever your opinion, it's certainly beautiful, isn't it?
=================================================================== Deep Field View In 1995, the telescope peered into a tiny spot in the sky for ten days, which surprisingly revealed the existence of at least 10,000 galaxies, some billions of light years away. This is the deepest visible light image ever made. Read more about Hubble and this image.
I'll admit it: I'm a Space Junkie. Whether near or far, just above our home here on Earth or beyond our solar system, it fascinates me. I also love music; from the classics, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is my all-time favorite, to Classic Rock sung by Bob Seger and others, to present-day Country 'n' Western tunes.
Put those two loves together and you just may find yourself enthralled with something like the fantastic production from NASA shown below. We live in a beautiful place. As you watch, note the location identification that will pop up in the lower left corner from time to time—nice to know what you're seeing.
Sit back, make sure the speakers are turned on, and enjoy the beauty and wonder of our planet for the next four minutes...
This video features a series of time lapse sequences photographed by the Expedition 30 crew aboard the International Space Station. Set to the song "Walking in the Air," by Howard Blake, the video takes viewers around the world, through auroras, and over dazzling lightning displays.
