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Weather: Open-Meteo · Lunar surface: NASA · Places: Natural Earth. Sun and Moon positions are calculated estimates. Place names identify the nearest mapped city, not a precise address.
Earth surface: NASA Blue Marble (2001–02). City lights: NASA VIIRS (2016). Day/night boundary is calculated for the current time. Neither image is a live satellite photograph.
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Earth's sunlit hemisphere changes continuously as our planet turns.
Find out where humanity's spacecraft are going, and why every mission matters.
Follow upcoming launches from Earth. Timings can change.
It looks close in the sky. But light has a long way to travel from the Sun to Earth.
Light travels roughly 300,000 kilometres every second. At Earth's average distance of 149.6 million kilometres, sunlight takes about 499 seconds to reach us. That's why we're always seeing the Sun as it was a little over eight minutes ago.
Explore the science with NASA ↗Imagine opening your next science lesson with one real observation of Earth and one fascinating question.
CLASSROOM MODE · PLANNEDNo student account required. Educational standards alignment may be added later; no endorsement is claimed.