Around local midnight, astronauts aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of Paris, often referred to as the “City of Light.”
The pattern of the street grid dominates at night, providing a completely different set of visual features from those visible during the day. For instance, the winding Seine River is a main visual cue by day, but here the thin black line of the river is hard to detect until you focus on the strong meanders and the street lights on both banks.
The brightest boulevard in the dense network of streets is the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the historical axis of the city, as designed in the 17th century. This grand avenue joins the site of the former royal Palace of the Tuileries—whose gardens appear as a dark rectangle on the river—to the star-like meeting place of eleven major boulevards at the Arc de Triomphe. This famous plaza is also referred to as the Étoile, or “star.”.
Credit: NASA
by Busy_Yesterday9455
5 Comments
I can see my house!
I can smell the piss still
* Guys in Pairs starts playing *
Stunning
Bet you can still smell it from that distance, even inside the ISS. But it does look stunning though. Really wish I could see a clear Earth at night from up there.