Black Marble – The Earth at Night Interactive Google Map

Here’s another cool resource that would be great to show as part of a lesson about Earth and Space (or populations). The “Black Marble” shows the Earth in darkness with all the city lights twinkling away – showing just how spread out we all are in some parts of the world, and how concentrated we are in others. A NASA satellite captured the nighttime views with a special on-board camera. Apparently it took 312 orbits to get a clear shot of  the entire surface of the Earth.

Now, with the involvement of Google (who else?) it has gone from a still image to an interactive experience with a new interactive map made up from a series of images merged together into one scrollable map.

The new map doesn’t seem to be an official feature of Google Maps, but you can access it here.

There’s also this rather cool video that you can show. Play it full screen and in HD if you can!

Science and Geography teachers should definitely check it out.

And don’t forget there’s also Google Moon, Mars and Sky for all your space image needs!