NASA releases earth images at night

Lights across the earth are pictured in this NASA handout satellite image obtained by Reuters Dec 5, 2012. This new image of the Earth at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in Oct 2012. It took 312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands. [Photo/Agencies]