{ "id": 2276, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2276/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "Earth at Night 2001", "description": "This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. 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. This animation is derived from an image created by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon from data provided by Christopher Elvidge of the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. || ", "release_date": "2001-10-19T12:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:57:53.120144-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 530346, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002200/a002276/europe_night_web.jpg", "filename": "europe_night_web.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe.", "width": 320, "height": 240, "pixels": 76800 }, "main_video": null, "main_credits": { "Visualizations by": [ { "name": "Stuart A. Snodgrass", "employer": "Global Science and Technology, Inc." } ] }, "progress": "Complete", "media_groups": [ { "id": 363687, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2276/#media_group_363687", "widget": "Basic text with HTML", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. 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.

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"instance": { "id": 530352, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002200/a002276/flat_earth_night.jpg", "filename": "flat_earth_night.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A Flat Earth lets you see human-made lights which are highlighted by developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan.", "width": 2560, "height": 1920, "pixels": 4915200 } }, { "id": 375549, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 530351, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002200/a002276/flat_earth_night_web.jpg", "filename": "flat_earth_night_web.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A Flat Earth lets you see human-made lights which are highlighted by developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan.", "width": 320, "height": 240, "pixels": 76800 } }, { "id": 375548, "type": "media", 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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 excange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dare areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.\"", "items": [ { "id": 375557, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 530359, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002200/a002276/a002276_slate.jpg", "filename": "a002276_slate.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Video slate image reads, \"Earth at NightHuman-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 excange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dare areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.\"", "width": 720, "height": 528, "pixels": 380160 } }, { "id": 375558, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 530360, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002200/a002276/a002276_slate_web.png", "filename": "a002276_slate_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Video slate image reads, \"Earth at NightHuman-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 excange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dare areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.\"", "width": 320, "height": 234, "pixels": 74880 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 363694, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2276/#media_group_363694", "widget": "Basic text", "title": "For More Information", "caption": "", "description": "See [Visible Earth](https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=55167)", "items": [], "extra_data": {} } ], "studio": "svs", "funding_sources": [ "EAP" ], "credits": [ { "role": "Animator", "people": [ { "name": "Stuart A. Snodgrass", "employer": "Global Science and Technology, Inc." }, { "name": "Robert Simmon", "employer": "SSAI" }, { "name": "Craig Mayhew", "employer": "Raytheon" } ] }, { "role": "Scientist", "people": [ { "name": "Christopher Elvidge", "employer": "NOAA/NGDC" }, { "name": "Marc Imhoff", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ] } ], "missions": [], "series": [ "Earth at Night" ], "tapes": [], "papers": [], "datasets": [ { "name": "Earth at Night", "common_name": "", "platform": "DMSP", "sensor": "OLS", "type": "Other", "organizations": [], "description": "", "credit": "", "url": "", "date_range": "1994/10 - 1995/03" } ], "nasa_science_categories": [ "Earth" ], "keywords": [ "Biosphere", "Earth Science", "Ecological Dynamics", "Fire Occurrence", "Human geography", "Lights", "Night" ], "recommended_pages": [], "related": [ { "id": 30028, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30028/", "page_type": "Hyperwall Visual", "title": "Earth at Night 2012", "description": "This new space-based view of Earth's city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took the satellite 312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over existing MODIS Blue Marble imagery to provide a realistic view of the planet.The view was made possible by the \"day-night band\" of Suomi NPP's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses \"smart\" light sensors to observe dim signals such as city lights, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight. This low-light sensor can distinguish night lights tens to hundreds of times better than previous satellites. || ", "release_date": "2013-04-05T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2025-02-02T00:24:29.642234-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 428129, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a030000/a030000/a030028/earthatnight2012_web_searchweb.jpg", "filename": "earthatnight2012_web_searchweb.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Flat map of the whole Earth", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }