Nighttime photographs from NASA show how humans and natural phenomena light up the darkness, and how and why scientists have observed Earth’s night lights for more than four decades, the space agency said.
“NASA’s spacefaring satellites have compiled an unprecedented record of our Earth, and its luminescence in darkness,” Thomas H. Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator, writes in the foreword of NASA’s latest e-book, Earth at Night.
Illumination can indicate how prosperous a region is. Images also reveal natural light sources, such as volcanoes and wildfires. Even fishing boats off the coast of Indonesia are seen from space.
Earth at Night is one of a library of NASA e-books about the science and beauty of space exploration, downloadable in e-book or PDF format.
