Sandy's Big Night -- from Bad Astronomy.com

[LongTomH]

The picture below was taken by NASA's Suomi NPP satellite:



Sandy's clouds are illuminated by the full moon. You can see the lights of southeastern US cities shining through the clouds.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait had these comments:

I suppose this is how a mouse feels, staring into the eyes of snake. There is a simultaneous dread, paralyzing fear, and entrancing beauty to hurricanes seen from space. I marvel when I see these… and then I remember the dozen or so hurricanes I’ve lived and driven through; the adrenaline surges every time I heard a branch crash down; the lying in bed at night awake, wondering what I’d awaken to. There can be terror in beauty.

Terror in beauty, indeed!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/10/29/sandys-big-night/

There are larger, hi-res images on NASA Goddard's flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/8132037748/sizes/o/in/photostream/

[enlightenment]

1. Terror in beauty

In the 18th century, Edmund Burke defined that feeling as 'sublime':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Philosophical_Inquiry_into_the_Origin_of_Our_Ideas_of_the_Sublime_and_Beautiful

An excellent definition of Sandy - kudos to the author.

[LongTomH]

2. Thanks for the comment and the link!