This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city ? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe , the eastern United States , and Japan . Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America , Africa , Asia , and Australia . The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the orbiting DMSP satellites .
( Editor's note: This image has become an email-attachment phenomenon! It has also generated many print requests. Unfortunately, we do not sell prints. However, a high-resolution digital version of the image is available ( click here or here ).