16 December 2014

Can You See Holiday Lights From Space? Yes!

Posted by Dan Satterfield

NASA’s Suomi Satellite has an amazing sensor that can see the Earth at night very well. The pics below are a comparison of normal city lights from space, and the green shows the added lights from all the holiday decorations! Pretty cool ay!

NASA has a video here and the pics of our region are below.

Here are further details from NASA:

From NASA.

From NASA.

With a new look at daily data from the NOAA/NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite, a NASA scientist and colleagues have identified how patterns in nighttime light intensity change during major holiday seasons – Christmas and New Year’s in the United States and the holy month of Ramadan in the Middle East.

Around many major U.S. cities, nighttime lights shine 20 to 50 percent brighter during Christmas and New Year’s when compared to light output during the rest of the year, as seen in the satellite data. In some Middle Eastern cities, nighttime lights shine more than 50 percent brighter during Ramadan, compared to the rest of the year.

Suomi NPP, a joint NASA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) mission, carries an instrument called the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). VIIRS can observe the dark side of the planet – and detect the glow of lights in cities and towns worldwide. In 2012, NOAA scientists released “Earth at Night” maps, created from VIIRS data. These well-known images are composites – based on monthly long-term averages of data collected on nights with no clouds or moonlight.

The new analysis of holiday lights uses an advanced algorithm, developed atNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, that filters out moonlight, clouds and airborne particles in order to isolate city lights on a daily basis. The data from this algorithm provide high-quality satellite information on light output across the globe, allowing scientists to track when – and how brightly – people illuminate the night. 

Christmas and New Year’s in the United States

In the United States, the lights started getting brighter on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving, and continued through New Year’s Day, said Miguel Román, a research physical scientist at NASA Goddard and member of the Suomi NPP Land Discipline Team, who co-led this research. He and his colleagues examined the light output in 2012 and 2013 in 70 U.S. cities, as a first step in determining patterns in urban energy use – a key factor in greenhouse gas emissions.