Earth at Night
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 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
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Animator
- Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Scientists
- Christopher Elvidge (NOAA/NGDC)
- Kimberly Baugh (NOAA/NGDC)
- Marc Imhoff (NASA/GSFC)
Release date
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.
Series
This page can be found in the following series:Datasets used
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[DMSP: OLS]
ID: 12Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.