Will the real blackout please stand up?

Many of you probably got an image in your mailboxes purporting to be a satellite photo of the Great Northeast Blackout of 2003. but it's obviously a fake, as it is too dark, like someone just ran over the are with a black paintbrush. For more on this urban legend, along with the real satellite images, try the Museum of Hoaxes site. You can also see the real images (dramatic, but not that dramatic), at: Great Northeast Power Blackout of 2003 or Images from the NOAA.

By the way, if you'd like to see the image from which the hoax was derived, plus a nifty accompanying story on the distribution of city lights on the Earth, go to NASA's Earth Observatory page.