Orbital Tour of Cities at Night

We have already seen some striking pictures of cities at Night seen from Space. Here is the explanation on how Nasa can make these beautiful images despite of orbital motion.

By the way, they now have a databse of over 4,000 images of cities at night (via The Regional Studies Blog).

Earth's Nightlights

NASA's "Blue Marble" (via Coordenadas)

More here.

off-topic: Spacebird's-eye View

More cities at Night seen from Spacebird's-eye View!

(via Dan Colman from Open Culture)

obs. Did you notice Randstad in the Netherlands?!

off-topic: Flying over Planet Earth

Cities at Night seen from Spacebird's-eye View (again).

 from Michael König on Vimeo.
(via Dan Colman from Open Culture)

off-topic: What does it feel like to fly over planet Earth?

(via Dan Colman from Open Culture)

You migh also like the post "Cities at Night" with some photographs of cities at night taken by astronauts from the International Space Station.

off-topic: child dream

I once wanted to be an astronaut instead I ended up being a sociologist and demographer.

This post is my tribute to NASA.

Cities at Night

The NASA Earth Observatory has a huge 'collection' of beautiful photographs. This collection includes some photographs of cities at night taken by astronauts from the International Space Station.

Astronauts circling the Earth have the wonderful vantage point of observing the nighttime Earth from 350-400 kilometers above the surface, taking in whole regions at once. Onboard cameras and a bit of experimentation allow astronauts to take highly detailed images of our cities at night and share them with the rest of us.

Brasília at night is the current image of the week. They say that "Brasília is widely considered to be one of the best examples of 20th century urban planning in the world." I'll try to take that as a complement.

(all photos credit: Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth)

Some other photographs: Montreal, Dubai, Las Vegas, Los Angeles (this video is great), London, Houston, Northern China, Buenos Aires, São Paulo. [Hat tip to The Map Room]

And my favorite ones:

France-Italy Border

Nile River Delta at Night

Tokyo Bay at night.