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VIIRS Day Night Band Captures Illuminated Landscape During Supermoon

December 4, 2017
The polar-orbiting NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this view of Northern California in Dec. 2017

The polar-orbiting NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this view of Northern California last night (December 3, 2017). Illuminated by the bright supermoon, features like the clouds and landscape usually only detected in daylight by the VIIRS sensor, appear here in stunning detail. The bright cluster of San Francisco's city lights are also visible in the image. The day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor, which is also part of the recently launched NOAA-20 satellite, is sensitive enough to detect the nocturnal glow produced by Earth's atmosphere and the light from a single ship in the sea.