If you haven’t yet seen these new images of our nighttime planet, feast your eyes. To quote NASA: “This new global view and animation of Earth’s city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took … 312 orbits  and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth’s land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery to provide a realistic view of the planet.”

The video above is narrated and includes some stunning close-up views of different parts of our nighttime planet. To watch our entire, beloved Blue Marble turn silently, lights twinkling, in the black vastness of space, click the image below.

For more animations and images, and to learn more about these stunning new views of Earth at Night, click here and go exploring. To view a gorgeous flat map, click the image below. You can download your own copy with NASA’s compliments here.

Enjoy.