National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Suomi-NPP's 'Marble' Collection

The Blue Marble

Western Hemisphere + web view | + hi-res image

Eastern Hemisphere + web view | + hi-res image

Australian view + web view | + hi-res image

Arctic view + web view | + hi-res image

The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS is the primary imaging instrument onboard NPP, and it acquires data in 22 spectral bands covering visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The Eastern, Western, and Australian views above were created by NASA scientist Norman Kuring. They are composite images using a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The Arctic composite was collected on May 26, 2012 from the OceanColor group at Goddard/NASA.

The Black Marble : The Earth at Night

North America + web view | + hi-res image

Asia + web view | + hi-res image

Africa/Europe + web view | + hi-res image

Scientists unveiled today an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. A global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from the the VIIRS instrument, shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across the planet in greater detail than ever before. + full feature

The Earth's Vegetation		Ocean Chlorophyll Concentrations
Eastern Hemisphere + web view | + hi-res image	Western Hemisphere + web view | + hi-res image	Northern Hemisphere + web view | + image feature	Southern Hemisphere + web view | + image feature
The images show the difference between green and arid areas of Earth as seen in data from the Visible-Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite, or VIIRS, instrument aboard Suomi NPP. VIIRS detects changes in the reflection of light, producing images that measure vegetation changes over time. + full feature		These images show season-long composites of ocean chlorophyll concentrations derived from visible radiometric measurements made by the VIIRS instrument on Suomi NPP. This false-colored image makes the data stand out. The purple and blue colors represent lower chlorophyll concentrations. The oranges and reds represent higher chlorophyll concentrations. These differences in color indicate areas with lesser or greater phytoplankton biomass.

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Making a Blue Marble : Behind the Scenes

The Suomi NPP satellite is in a polar orbit around Earth at an altitude of 512 miles (about 824 kilometers), but the perspective of the new Eastern hemisphere 'Blue Marble' is from 7,918 miles (about 12,743 kilometers). NASA scientist Norman Kuring managed to 'step back' from Earth to get the big picture by combining data from six different orbits of the Suomi NPP satellite. Or putting it a different way, the satellite flew above this area of Earth six times over an eight hour time period. Norman took those six sets of data and combined them into one image. + full feature