While I find these images extremely interesting, let me add a contrarian voice: the associations that such night-time photos bring up in me are primarily about waste and habitat destruction.
How bright should lights be to turn up on this? Why can't we see Aircraft carriers/Big merchant vessels or offshore oil wells or even research stations on the Antartic?
One interesting place is down the south of Argentina, off the east coast. Although there is no land there, there is the (almost spiral) pattern of lights in the ocean. They seem about as bright as Melbourne, and more expansive.<p>I was told once that these are fishermen, who tend to congregate in one area at night time. I'm not sure if it is for social reasons, or business reasons, or something else.
It would be great to have this integrated into a mapping software lige google maps, next to the existing day time satellite layer.
For instance, this would be useful to find good spots for watching the stars at night or to find remote camping spots or hiking areas.
I've seen heatmaps of the population density of the USA before, so I shouldn't be surprised. But seeing the city lights at night... I feel like that's a real fact now, not just an abstraction.
Interesting things in both images:<p>In the world map you can clearly see where North Korea is: just look for the really clean line. Pretty depressing.<p>On the US map, west of New Jersey (or south-west of NYC, if that is easier to find), you can somewhat faintly see that the light outlines the shape of the Appalachian Mountains. Check out the Google maps relief map of Pennsylvania as a comparison: <a href="http://goo.gl/7xsN9" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/7xsN9</a>
If you enjoy these, and you have BBC iPlayer I highly recommend the 3 part Supersized Earth <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00zy57x/Supersized_Earth_A_Place_to_Live/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00zy57x/Supersized_Ear...</a> for more scary/wow Anthropocene material.
Having lived inside London for the past year and a half, the M25 is a decent psychological barrier between London and the rest of the country but seeing it as a pretty distinct glowing line was something else.
Does anyone know what the dark area on the FL/GA border is? I never realized it was unpopulated and Google Maps doesn't give much information about the area as a whole.
its postings like these that inspire me to think that the internet and the web is just a means of a global communication tool to create unity -- thanks.