SOS - Day/Night cycle with Blue Marble and Black Marble Nightlights
This visualization shows the day/night cycle of Earth.
This animation shows daylight and nighttime cycles of Earth over a three-day period in 2024 as the planet spins on it’s axis.
Science On A Sphere Content
Daylight and nighttime cycles of Earth over a three-day period, played on an interactive 3D globe.

Still image of day/night view of Earth

Still image of day/night view of Earth
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Visualizer
- Kel Elkins (USRA)
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Scientists
- Zhuosen Wang (University of Maryland)
- Miguel Román (Leidos)
- Ranjay Shrestha (SSAI)
- Srija Chakraborty (USRA)
- Virginia Kalb (NASA)
Release date
This page was originally published on Friday, May 16, 2025.
This page was last updated on Friday, May 16, 2025 at 5:29 PM EDT.
Datasets used
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Black Marble (Black Marble: Next Generation) [Suomi NPP: VIIRS]
ID: 1176Earth at night imagery
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Román, NASA GSFC.
This dataset can be found at: https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/144898/earth-at-night-black-marble-2016-color-maps/144947l
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.