NASA has just released spectacular pictures of the Earth at Night under the name "Black Marble".

This task is about creating a new Map Theme for Marble "Earth at Night 2012" which will eventually replace the current one that we already ship by default.

First you need the textures:

A high resolution one is available here. Please save it and scale it down to 21600x10800 pixels.

If this is too huge, then just take this one instead and scale it up to 21600x10800 pixels.

Then the data needs to be integrated: For this you need to create an xml file in the "dgml" format. You can download some example zip files of maps for Mars here:

Marble Maps

We especially recommend the Historical Harriot Moon Map as an example for a map with a nice legend. Unzip them and have a look at the dgml files. Find out which changes you need to make. Additionally you could have a look at the dgml file for the "Earth at Night" map that we  ship with the Marble sources. They lack a nice legend though.

After editing the file it should be possible to display the "Black Marble" inside Marble.

But at this point you're not done yet: We expect proper attribution and a nice Map legend. The legend should provide some nice explanations about the background of the Mission behind the "Black Marble". Read the NASA Press Release and NASA Website about Black Marble to get the details.

Also the Legend description should mention the problem of Light Pollution . Here you can also add a link to the International Dark Sky Association as a reference (in addition to other possible references on the NASA Black Marble websites). See also the International Dark Sky Association's news item on their webpage about this map.

Some photo like this could be added as a thumbnail.

At the end of the task the student needs to verify whether the data displayed is consistent with other sources on the internet.

This map needs to be provided in a way so that it can get uploaded to Marble's GHNS server.