Satellite images released this week by those crazy party animals at NASA and their more subdued colleagues at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – dramatically (or prophetically?) dubbed the ‘Black Marble’ images – have revealed that Australia’s arid red left-of-centre is actually the hottest nightlife tourist destination in the country. Sorry Melbourne, sorry Sydney, sorry Prized Casinos Everywhere.
The nighttime photographs, which were observed by the Suomi NPP satellite, reveal that the light being emitted from the middle of nowhere is, surprisingly enough, not light generated by the radiant chakra of millions of people having the time of their life like they almost certainly are in said soulless casinos; instead, it’s actually light being generated by raging, ravenous wildfires that will consume any and every thing that stands in their path.
What they’re not telling us is that the light also definitely has something to do with either alien communes, Gina Rinehart’s diamond deposits, or the residual incandescence leftover from Jessica Mauboy’s star turn in Bran Nue Dae; that, or the Hansel & Gretel-like trail of gold dust she leaves behind in her wake.
The final photographs, which you can see in the animated globe below, are actually composite images taken between April and October that register the collective light emitted from densely populated regions and the insatiable flames that burn at the heart of our country. Also worth noting, according to Science Daily, is that these fires “are temporary features, in contrast to cities, which are always there.” Good to know.
Cities: not going anywhere, anytime soon.
Also, the World: never not beautiful.
Photos via NASA Earth Observatory
