New stunning nighttime views of Earth unveiled showing city lights, wildfires, auroras
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Twinkling city lights, raging wildfires and colorful auroras are lit up in new dazzling nighttime views of the Earth.
The new images released Wednesday are courtesy of a newly launched NASA-NOAA satellite that's equipped with a sensor to observe the planet at night.
There's the Nile River bathed in city lights. A map of the United States shows the populated East Coast illuminated. Light from fishing boats can be pinpointed.
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The satellite also captured the glow from natural sources including moonlight, northern lights and naturally-occurring fires.
After Superstorm Sandy made landfall in late October, hard-hit New Jersey, lower Manhattan and the Rockaways appeared dark in the satellite images compared with surrounding areas — the result of widespread power outages.