WATCH: NASA Video Shows Cities and Highways Glowing Like Stars

In this video, we are flying over the Earth, looking down and seeing what astronauts see when it's nighttime, when lightning storms flash like June bugs, when cities look like galaxies, when you can see where people are. It's quietly astonishing.

This montage of space footage was assembled and narrated by NASA scientist Justin Wilkinson. There's another one, which takes us around the Earth in daytime.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.