How can there be so much fire in Africa? 20% of the continent can't be on fire, can it?

What an odd composite photo.

Saddest part of that map to me is always the contrast between North and South Korea.

Yay! I got a new desktop. But I wish so much of Africa wasn't on fire.

is this really a photo?

You_mean_Im_gonna_stay_this_color: is this really a photo?

Well, it's a composite, probably with some false-coloring like we do for most NASA photos.

Who knew there were so many?

Hey! I can see my house from here!

As a person who likes looking up at the stars, this picture always makes me a little sad. Because the people in the brightly lit areas rarely see the stars at all. I wish people who made billboards would light them from the top down, then a lot of that light would just go into the ground instead of up blotting out the sky. There's other things that can be done, but that's about the only one that wouldn't cost anything. No one's going to pay extra just to make a tiny difference in the amount of light pollution.

Chutzpaw007: As a person who likes looking up at the stars, this picture always makes me a little sad. Because the people in the brightly lit areas rarely see the stars at all. I wish people who made billboards would light them from the top down, then a lot of that light would just go into the ground instead of up blotting out the sky. There's other things that can be done, but that's about the only one that wouldn't cost anything. No one's going to pay extra just to make a tiny difference in the amount of light pollution.

So true. I'm from Los Angeles, went to college in the Bay Area, and am now in NY. This summer, I was in Tibet, and it was ASTONISHING. It was like a roof of stars. I couldn't have imagined it.

You_mean_Im_gonna_stay_this_color: is this really a photo?

Of course! They just turned off the sun for awhile. Cool trick, if you know how to do it.

Awwwwwwwright, the sun exploded.

Japan and the Netherlands are SHINY

the amount of light produced by the fishing fleets is amazing. probably not an ecologically sound practice, but nothing in Asia is.

What's up with the blue in Japan and the green in Russia? Are they using that many colored lights or what?

Is that a Borg cube over Florida or do I have some bad pixels in my monitor?

/That would explain a lot though

Lampmonster: What's up with the blue in Japan and the green in Russia? Are they using that many colored lights or what?

Legends are your friend.

Lampmonster: What's up with the blue in Japan and the green in Russia? Are they using that many colored lights or what?

Radiation is a biatch.

someone should loan Australia some electricity.

For lack of light pollution, there is nothing to compare with the deck of a navy ship, at sea, running dark.
The sky is grey...

Chutzpaw007: As a person who likes looking up at the stars, this picture always makes me a little sad. Because the people in the brightly lit areas rarely see the stars at all. I wish people who made billboards would light them from the top down, then a lot of that light would just go into the ground instead of up blotting out the sky. There's other things that can be done, but that's about the only one that wouldn't cost anything. No one's going to pay extra just to make a tiny difference in the amount of light pollution.

Good points. I live in Philadelphia and cannot, ever see the Milky Way. I have to wait until we vacation to take the time to view the stars.

I wish we could reduce the amount of light output from this metropolis, but the simple fact is that human safety is a higher priority than looking at the stars.

FAKE
That's absolutely impossible. 9 million people live in whole Sweden, and mostly in Stockholm and Göteborg.

/And just 5 million in Finland
//Both should be much darker than South Africa.

Check out the Nile river in Egypt. Pretty cool.

I blame Bush and Global Warming.

Africa is burning... but we already knew that.

tfm_copycat: FAKE
That's absolutely impossible. 9 million people live in whole Sweden, and mostly in Stockholm and Göteborg.

/And just 5 million in Finland
//Both should be much darker than South Africa.

Do people give off light? I don't see the connection.

What a wonderful pic.

Here we sit on this planet, clinging to the areas near water, jazzing up the scenery with electricity until the fuel goes away.. thinking we know everything.

+100 perspective.

Is Cuba on fire? I missed that in the news.

DamnYankees:
Do people give off light? I don't see the connection.

That's a really stupid comment. I'll try to ignore it.

Um, shouldn't California be dark, considering the age of the pic?
I am probably wrong though.

Have a good day folks.

well, people have said i'm pretty ILLUMINATING!

/heh
//heh
///sorry i'll leave now

There is no dark side of the earth. Matter of fact it's all dark.

honestly, I think I've seen this on fark 2 other times already.

Just sayin...

Amazing photo though and living in Jersey, I do agree with the comments about light pollution. Don't see jack.

This is why going "green" is the biggest farce and I won't support it. All that light isn't coming from personal houses or property. Most folks turn their lights out at night. All that light is coming from the government and businesses. They are the real energy wasters, not you and me.

BunkyBrewman: I live in Philadelphia and cannot, ever see the Milky Way.

It' amazing to me, just going from my house (which is between a city and a retail area) to the state forest out near Cape Cod brings out the Milky Way. I can't imagine what it must look like from the middle of the South Pacific or something like that.

The damn Canadians are massing on the border..

/got us looking at Mexico
//neat trick

Smellvin: Japan and the Netherlands are SHINY

So is Puerto Rico. I wonder what kinda party is going on there?

Aren't the natural gas flares where the oil wells are?

Very cool, but also old. Think that was my desktop circa 2003.

Apparently the world really is on fire as this image shows.
http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/maps.asp

... but here in the US we only freak out if the fires are going to attack the rich people in California!

oops.
http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/maps.asp
(new window)

Is it me, or can you almost make out the outline of West Virginia?

/live just north of it
//am afraid of my mountaineer cousins
///slashies for all!

CyranoJones: Aren't the natural gas flares where the oil wells are?

Yes.

BTW, I'm still flabbergasted by the amount of wildfires in Africa. This must be a long exposure ('94-'95, see legend), but it seems that we should also see more fishing fleet lights in that case, in the North Sea for example.

I figured Chernobyl would of been glowing brighter than everything else.

/hmmm???.....

bunner: What a wonderful pic.

Here we sit on this planet, clinging to the areas near water, jazzing up the scenery with electricity until the fuel goes away.. thinking we know everything.

+100 perspective.

Dear oh dear. How do you even have the courage to draw your next breath?

ohioindy: How can there be so much fire in Africa? 20% of the continent can't be on fire, can it?

Check out SE Asia...

Africa? fark Africa... lookit SE Asia... think of the poppies..dear sweet poppies [thai stick too]

tfm_copycat: DamnYankees:
Do people give off light? I don't see the connection.

That's a really stupid comment. I'll try to ignore it.

Ignore it all you want, but there's no correlation between "number of people" and "amount of electrical light." China has 1.5 billion people, but Denmark is a lot richer and has more infrastructure.

c.j.: I figured Chernobyl would of been glowing brighter than everything else.

/hmmm???.....

Cherenkov blue, my favourite color.

/Window seat

Perth, Australia is a lonely place.
This has to be a compposite or some sort of special photographic method, for night doesn't happen all over the world at once . . .