Earth in the (kinda) Dark

We hear words like "noise pollution" and "light pollution" from time to time. They come up less often now since so many people are worrying about more physical forms of pollution, but if you've ever tried finding a place to view an astronomical event you know that light pollution is an annoying, if not destructive, reality.

One of NASA's more interesting developments in recent years is their Earth Observatory website which tracks various information about the planets surface through observation from space.

Recently, EO released an image of lights on Earth compiled from 9 months of observation. You can see how the more heavily urbanized areas are bright and dense, while at least the coastlines of our continents are almost all outlined in light. It's an interesting perspective to really see how much light were generating on our surface. It's easy not to realize the true reach of light from our perspective, where our bulbs seem to give in to the darkness after only 10 or 15 feet. But, relative to the darkness of space, we seem to be working our way to becoming a star instead of a planet.