Earth  ID: 3363

The Lights of Earth: Full Spin in High Resolution

Visualizations by Alex Kekesi Released on July 10, 2006
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 'Earth at Night' picture is actually a composite of hundreds of images made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). 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.

A lower resolution version of this same animation can be found here.
Download Options
Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface.

Visualization Credits

Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead 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/3363

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.

Dates of Data Used:
1994/10 - 1995/03

This item is part of this series:
Earth at Night

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
DLESE >> Human geography
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Biosphere >> Ecological Dynamics >> Fire Occurrence
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Biosphere >> Ecological Dynamics >> Population Dynamics
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Human Dimensions >> Infrastructure >> Electricity
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Human Dimensions >> Population >> Population Distribution
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