Two most stunning earth-at-night images you'll ever see

If you have a large screen monitor and never put it to great use, or you can connect your laptop to your giant LCD TV but have never bothered to, today's the day. Scientists in U.S. unveiled a breathtaking new look at our planet at night, through a global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite. It shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across the planet in greater detail than has ever been seen before. Lots of technical details on how these were captured is here, but what you really want to see first are these two images below, in all the glorious detail you can.

The full earth at night: Click on the image to see the full pic in high res.

Continental U.S. at night: Click on the image to see the full pic in high res.