Sandy seen in the dark of night

This nighttime image of Hurricane Sandy was captured by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite around 2:42 a.m. ET on October 28.

NASA says the storm was captured by a special "day-night band," which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as auroras, airglow, gas flares, city lights, and reflected moonlight. In this case, the cloud tops were lit by the nearly full Moon occurring on October 29th. Some city lights in Florida and Georgia are also visible amid the clouds.