Earth at Night

This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city ? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe , the eastern United States , and Japan . Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America , Africa , Asia , and Australia . The featured image , nicknamed Black Marble , is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures re made in 2016 from data taken by the orbiting Suomi NPP satellite .