I don't believe it.

Which part don't you believe?

The part where all the lights come on at the same time, or the part where places like Japan are hardly lit up at all.

Bider I see the problem. You probably thought that you were looking at lights in the night sky with the US showing up disproportionately bright. In fact what you are looking at is the discharge of personal fire arms. So yeah, that's about right.

LOL Gray!

Really? You think so Gray? I still think that map would be different.

"Ta Friggin da"

There was a picture of "Earth Lights" circulating around the web for sometime. There was also a poster for sale. The original pictures were taken by The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). The Nighttime Lights of the World poster depicts the lights from cities, fires, gas flares, and fishing boats, each in a separate color. Source data collected October 1994 - March 1995. I actually worked on that satellite and TIROS, or Television Infrared Observation Satellite program for many years. (TMI, sorry)

I don't really know what the picture at the top represents but it is not the DMSP data. The original DMSP data is shown below.

that sounds like it would be a fascinating job Gray.
See and we all thought you were just some kite-flying hippie like Ryan!

The pic up top made me wonder how a random light would show up in the middle of god-freaking-nowhere Northwest Territories.

Doh! Totally forgot how our Inuit throw the most badass all nighter Raves.

Seeely me.

What's up with Madagascar? It's like one dude standing around with a jar of lightning bugs.

Here is a cool site too.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Earth?opt=-p&img=learth.evif