Sunrise, Sunset

A real-time illustration of our planet's illumination and weather systems. Click for full-size, or rectangular projection here. I have this hot-linked to the source, and I'm curious to see if it changes here in the blog. You can only just see it in the images above, but electrified regions show night lights as well. The sun here in my little burg is just heading toward the horizon... soon western Oregon will have its lights on too.

Note this is not a real-time photo; it's a pastiche of a whole lot of satellite imagery overlaid on a model globe with other data (night illumination, e.g.) added on. There seem to be a number of e-mail-type memes that go viral (as did the mercator map of illumination sources on the earth at night) that start with "This amazing photo was taken by shuttle astronauts on a very clear night..." This is not a photo, it's a spectacular simulation.