Black Marble

Black Marble images display all the human and natural matter that glows and can be sensed from space

On December 5, 2012, NASA released a nighttime view of Earth called Black Marble during an annual meeting of earth scientists held by the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The images display all the human and natural matter that glows and can be sensed from space.


According to NASA, the nighttime views were made possible by the new satellite’s “day-night band” of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. The so-called VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, gas flares, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight. Auroras, fires, and other stray light have been removed in the case of the Black Marble images to emphasize the city lights. The NASA stated that nighttime images can be used for numerous purposes:
