Tags: NASA, Satellite Imagery, Earth Observation, Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership
Publication: MercuryNews.com
Publication Date: 12/05/2012

Image of the continental United States at night assembled from Suomi NPP satellite data obtained in April and October 2012. Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC

NASA released new images of Earth’s night scene from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. The spacecraft uses an infrared camera to identify light sources that were not visible from space before.

After 312 orbits, NPP was able to compile the high-quality images of every corner of Earth. Then, months of computer processing assembled the final pictures released by NASA.

The same cameras that captured the photographs are used to observe weather systems at night making forecasts highly accurate and reliable. In fact, since the images were captured in April and October of this year, on one of the pictures of the Western Hemisphere it is possible to see a weather formation that seems to be Hurricane Sandy hovering off the coast of the U.S.

NASA made available high-resolution photographs for free download as well as video animations through its website.

 Full story