Friday Night Lights: NASA Can See Your Holiday Lights from Space

One of the first things researchers noticed when nighttime images from the Suomi NPP satellite were beamed back to Earth: the planet's ambient lighting changes drastically during certain holidays, like Christmas and Ramadan.

1 minute read

December 19, 2014, 5:00 AM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


According to Brad Plumer, "many large US cities are 20 to 50 percent brighter at night during the holiday season than they are during the rest of the year."

"Researchers affiliated with NASA took a look at holiday lighting with the Suomi NPP satellite," generating a set of maps showing how the effects of holiday lighting from space. While the article has some of the maps showing holiday lights in places like the East Coast and the San Francisco Bay Area, the video below explains more about the findings and processes of Suomi NPP's images.

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