Earth ID: 2396

The Lights of Earth: United States

Visualizations by Stuart A. Snodgrass Released on March 6, 2002

The Lights of Earth can be seen from space. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan. Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) currently operates four satellites carrying the Operational Linescan System (OLS) in low-altitude polar orbits. Three of these satellites record nighttime data. The DMSP-OLS has a unique capability to detect low levels of visible-near infrared (VNIR) radiance at night. With the OLS 'VIS' band data it is possible to detect clouds illuminated by moonlight, plus lights from cities, towns, industrial sites, gas flares, and ephemeral events such as fires and lightning-illuminated clouds. The Nighttime Lights of the World data set is compiled from the October 1994 - March 1995 DMSP nighttime data collected when moonlight was low. Using the OLS thermal infrared band, areas containing clouds were removed and the remaining area used in the time series.

The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) currently operates four satellites carrying the Operational Linescan System (OLS) in low-altitude polar orbits.

Three of these satellites record nighttime data. The DMSP-OLS has a unique capability to detect low levels of visible-near infrared (VNIR) radiance at night. With the OLS VIS band data it is possible to detect clouds illuminated by moonlight, plus lights from cities, towns, industrial sites, gas flares, and ephemeral events such as fires and lightning-illuminated clouds.

The Nighttime Lights of the World data set is compiled from the October 1994 - March 1995 DMSP nighttime data collected when moonlight was low. Using the OLS thermal infrared band, areas containing clouds were removed and the remaining area used in the time series.

For More Information

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?5826

Visualization Credits

Stuart A. Snodgrass (GST): Lead Animator
Robert Simmon (SSAI): Animator
Craig Mayhew (Raytheon): Animator
Christopher Elvidge (NOAA/NGDC): Scientist
Marc Imhoff (NASA/GSFC): Scientist

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

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2396

Data Used:

DMSP/OLS/Earth at Night

1994/10 - 1995/03

view all stories where this data set is used

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of this series:
Earth at Night

Keywords:
DLESE >> Human geography
SVS >> Lights
SVS >> Night
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Biosphere >> Ecological Dynamics >> Fire Occurrence
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0