Earth at Night

  • Released Thursday, January 21, 1999
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The influence humans have had on their planet can be seen from space. Viewing Earth at night, we see the lights of countless villages, towns, and cities. Fires from slash-and-burn farming and the burn-off of natural gas in oil fields appear in red and yellow. This perspective unveils the breadth of human activity on Earth. It spans the globe.

An image showing Earths light sources on a rotating globe, where white represents stable urban lights and fire data is shown in red and yellow.

Video slate image reads, "Earth at NightThe data sets were collected by the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan system. NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center processed and supplied the data. Additional data processing was carried out by GSFC's Biospheric Sciences Branch".

Video slate image reads, "Earth at Night
The data sets were collected by the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan system. NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center processed and supplied the data. Additional data processing was carried out by GSFC's Biospheric Sciences Branch".

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Thursday, January 21, 1999.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:59 PM EDT.

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Datasets used in this visualization

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