This view of Earth at night is a cloud-free view from space as acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Satellite (Suomi NPP).
A joint program by NASA and NOAA, Suomi NPP captured this nighttime image by the satellite's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS).
The day-night band on VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, gas flares, and wildfires.
This new image is a composite of data acquired over nine days in April and thirteen days in October 2012.
It took 312 satellite orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of land surface.
