back to article Rosetta spies nightlife on our sleeping planet

What better way to start a Friday than with a stupendously glorious picture of our planet? Well, we couldn't think of many better ways that are legal, so we've gone for the picture option. The Earth's night side, as seen by Rosetta. Credit: ESA The Earth's night side, as seen by Rosetta. Credit: ESA This is a composite …

COMMENTS

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  1. Ross Fleming
    Thumb Up

    Who forgot to set the flash then?

    Very pretty. Aren't we lucky it wasn't cloudy that day? :-)

    Anyone up for a bit of identification of which hemisphere we're looking at? I'm making the assumption that Rosetta is in the same orbital plane to the Sun that we are, and North is roughly up...

  2. Scott

    If you squint and cross your eye's while looking at this....

    You'll look pretty darn silly! and it still looks like bird poop on the windshield.

  3. Daniel
    Mars

    Interesting variations

    Somalia, Cameroon and Gabon appear to be burning the midnight oil, with a vengence, but the whole of South Africa is tucked up in bed.

  4. Matt

    Elvis

    Can anyone else see Elvis in the lights???

    ... no just me again then.

  5. JP
    Black Helicopters

    Aurora?

    You can sort of figure out and identify the various light spots around the region (Italy, Nile delta, Israel, Indian subcontinent, Hong Kong/Shenzhen, Taiwan, Shanghai, Korea + Japan) but what the heck is all that light from the North Pole?!? It can't be sunlight, as we can see a sliver of the South Pole, so therefore what we can see of the NP must be in darkness...

    Are there some sort of military installations, or even alien installations!, in the NP that we don't know about? 'Cause I thought that the Northern Lights were quiet dim...

  6. Anthony Hulse

    Interesting

    Looks like the lights are on in North Korea. Is this the reward for their current co-operation with Japan, USA et al.? Someone paying the fuel bills?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Nice

    That is a beautiful image.

    Thank you Lucy.

  8. Keith T
    Happy

    Shows my age . . .

    . . .I was expecting a Pink Floyd reference there - Dark Side something or other.

  9. Rik

    @Ross

    "Anyone up for a bit of identification of which hemisphere we're looking at?"

    The article already says the pic was snapped while Rosetta was over the Indian Ocean, and you can see the outline of the Indian subcontinent somewhat north of the centre. The Indonesia archipelago appears to the lower right of it, and the crescent in the upper right is Japan.

    @Daniel:

    Prolly to do with the timezone the respective countries are in.

  10. Luther Blissett

    I've just spotted my name up in lights

    Oh look

  11. umacf24
    Mars

    @JP

    It's the aurora. It is dim, but it's big and foreshortened.

  12. Liam Johnson
    Unhappy

    Very pretty, but

    I would be nicer to turn all the bloody lights off at night so Billions of people can look up at the wonders of the night sky rather that leaving them all on so one spacecraft can take a nice picture.

  13. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    If *I* squint and cross my eyes.........

    I reckon I can see the figure of Jesus in the light effects. Quick, put the planet on eBay before someone else does.

  14. Phil Bishop

    Oh bugger

    I left the living room light on again!!!!

  15. Liam Johnson
    Unhappy

    Very pretty, but….Very pretty, but….

    I would be nicer to turn all the bloody lights off at night so Billions of people can look up at the wonders of the night sky rather that leaving them all on so one spacecraft can take a nice picture.

  16. Joe

    A prize!

    For the first person to match a Google Earth snapshot with this image.

    The prize - a matched night/day earth image. :D

  17. Vulpes Vulpes

    @ JP

    That's the working lights from Saruman's trolls and orcs slaving away in the polar tunnel to the inside of the earth, as eny fule kno.

  18. Kevin Eastman
    Mars

    @ Keith T

    As soon as I saw this, I immediately thought of Pink Floyd as well. "If the band you're in starts playing a different tune, I'll see you on the dark side of the ... Earth."

  19. BitTwister

    @Liam Johnson

    Too right - it's a good night here if I can see more than 5 stars through the filthy yellow light pollution yet as a kid, from the same area, I could see the Milky Way.

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