Chicago, Midwest Lights At Night As Seen From Space

By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Even from space, the lights from Chicago are blinding.

The Suomi NPP satellite captured night images over nine days in April 2012 and 13 days the same year in October.

The data was mapped and provided by Google, which you can view here.

The image above shows a good portion of the upper Midwest. The images have been available for well over a year, but if you haven't seen them, it's worth exploring.

A solid glare of light can be seen all over Chicago, as far north as Milwaukee, south into Indiana and outlining lower Lake Michigan into southwest Michigan.

The image also clearly shows other large Midwest cities, including St. Louis, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.

It took 312 orbits to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands.