Thread: Sunset From Outer Space

A Digital Sunset Over Europe and Africa
Credit: NASA; Copyright: The Living Earth, Inc.; Used with Permission

No single spacecraft or astronaut took this picture. It is a digital composite of archived images taken by several Earth-orbiting satellites and ocean-faring ships. Similar images can be digitally stitched together for any Earth location by John Walker's Earth and Moon Viewer website. Specifically, the daytime land images were taken by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite, while the nighttime images were taken by the DMSP satellites. This image is different from what an astronaut would see for reasons including a complete lack of clouds and an unrealistic exaggeration of lights and contrasts. The image has become both an internet wave in that it continues to circulate as an attachment to digital correspondence, and a modern urban legend. Another image like that is Earth at Night. The reason for the image's continued popularity might be simple: it is really cool looking.
Source

The photograph attached was taken by the crew on board the Columbia during its last mission, on a cloudless day.

The picture is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting. Half of the picture is in night. The bright dots you see are the cities lights.

The top part of Africa is the SaharaDesert. Note that the lights are already on in Holland, Paris, and Barcelona, and that's it's still daylight in Dublin
, London, Lisbon, andMadrid. Clearly lit up are Rome, Napoli, Milano, and Paris (still light but lit up). Above Paris is a huge amount of light from Brussels (Belgium), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Koln, Bonn and Frankfurt (Germany). To the lower right, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg (Germany) above that. To the right Warsaw (Poland). On the Mediterranean Sea, Athens (Greece). Below in Africa, Lagos, Ibadan and the Nigerian coast.
The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean Sea is already in darkness.
In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the AzoresIslands; below them to the right are the Madeira Islands; a bit below are the Canary Islands; and further South, close to the farthest western point of Africa, are the Cape Verde islands.

The different depths of the Atlantic Ocean can be seen by the different colors - the darker the blue, the deeper.

Note that the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during Daytime and night time.

To the left, on top, is Greenland, totally frozen.

No single spacecraft or astronaut took this picture.

In other words, the crew of Columbia did not take this photo, as the brief NASA description details.
Plus, I'd have said it was pretty dark in Italy, but still, a very nice picture. :wink:

Originally Posted by Geodesic

No single spacecraft or astronaut took this picture.

In other words, the crew of Columbia did not take this photo, as the brief NASA description details.
Plus, I'd have said it was pretty dark in Italy, but still, a very nice picture. :wink:

Yeah, that was a fairly stupid mistake on my part. I am sorry for that.

But a sunset from space would look very cool. At least I think so.

As always a picture is worth a thousand words. To describe the majesty of this photo work is a difficult task indeed. The composite shows the sea bottom in a way that could never been seen in a standard photo.

Thats pretty cool though

That has always been one of my favorite pics of the earth from space, here's another one that they made by piecing pics together. It's the whole world at nightime.

http://faculty.uaeu.ac.ae/~myagoub/R...ight_Night.jpg

Wow. Talking about what a view. ( And light polution) Canada is shining like hell.