How strange I felt looking upon this nighttime photo and seeing just how bright our city lights are. It is no wonder that we cannot see the beauty of the night anymore. It is something I love about living in the country, to just look up and see an infinite amount of stars and just wonder what it would be like to visit those distant places and make friends with those other life-forms. Gotta be optimistic here as I wouldn’t want to visit a distant worlds and become a mid-day snack.But I was also struck at the rare glimpse of earth with a darkened horizon, most photos always show us as a blue orb and we rarely see how beautifully twisted we look at night.
Western Europe at Night
With hardware from the Earth-orbiting International Space Station appearing in the near foreground, a night time European panorama reveals city lights from Belgium and the Netherlands at bottom center. the British Isles partially obscured by solar array panels at left, the North Sea at left center, and Scandinavia at right center beneath the end effector of the Space Station Remote Manipulator System or Canadarm2. This image was taken by the station crew on Jan. 22, 2012.
Image Credit: NASA
Craig Blog 
charlesmichelduke
February 1, 2012 at 5:12 am
Agreed, living in London, the night lights spoils my views of the heavens. But at least passing aliens know we are here 😉
Craig & Joe
February 1, 2012 at 5:14 pm
True. Have you seen any UFO’s? I keep hearing that the UK has lots of them.
in every atom
February 4, 2012 at 1:01 pm
“mid-day snack” for aliens and “how beautifully twisted we look at night”, made me chuckle on the first phrase and go “awww” on the second phrase. You are on a roll here with your wordsmithery. 😉
Yes, what irony, the night lights in the cities, removes the joys of viewing the night skies for the city folks, but, oh, these same night lights bring joys to the astronauts and other life forms that see our twinkling orb.