Earth at Night

by National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Earth has many stories to tell, even in the dark of night. Earth at Night, NASA’s new 200-page ebook, is now available online and includes more than 150 images of our planet in darkness as captured from space by Earth-observing satellites and astronauts on the International Space Station over the past 25 years.

The images reveal how human activity and natural phenomena light up the darkness around the world, depicting the intricate structure of cities, wildfires and volcanoes raging, auroras dancing across the polar skies, moonlight reflecting off snow and deserts, and other dramatic earthly scenes.

“Earth at Night explores the brilliance of our planet when it is in darkness,” wrote Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in the book’s foreword. “The book is a compilation of stories depicting the interactions between science and wonder. I am pleased to share this visually stunning and captivating exploration of our home planet.”

In addition to the images, the book tells how scientists use these observations to study our changing planet and aid decision makers in such areas as sustainable energy use and disaster response.

NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. The agency makes its Earth observations freely and openly available to everyone for use in developing solutions to important global issues such as changing freshwater availability, food security and human health.

For more information about NASA's Earth science programs, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/earth

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Space

179 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.

Reviews

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book looking at the Earth at night from space.

It first looks at natural night images of the Earth, as illuminated by natural phenomenon like forest or bush fires, volcanoes, the moon, clouds and lightning, snow and ice, the auroras and atmospheric air glow.

The second section looks at artificial night images, illuminated by urban constructions (cities blocks, factories, refineries) and urban living. Another section looks at before and after images of night views after disasters like hurricanes, wars.

All in all, the book shows a different view of world: how it looks like illuminated at night. It is quite different from normal daylight views of the world as the sources of lighting isn't only the sun, but may be several sources that may or may not follow the contours of the land that can mislead the eye.

There are explanations provided with each image that help explain what the reader is seeing and how to interpret the image as well as pointing out certain points of interest in each image.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating ebook from NASA: educational while easy to follow and with stunning satellite imagery of Earth. It is hard not to think there is implicit commentary in these images, say for the burgeoning Flat Earthers:

A thin yellow-brown band tracing Earth’s curvature at image top is airglow.

And much on the environmental/climate change front that is very subtly stated:

Scientists watched the Arctic with particular interest in the summer of 2012 when the areal
extent of Arctic sea ice set a new record low. The behavior of sea ice following such a low extent
also interests scientists...

I, of course, have heard of melting polar ice, but the Arctic polluting effects of Dakotan drilling was new to me:

Connection Between Gas Flaring and Arctic Pollution—North Dakota

Previous research has suggested that gas flares from oil and natural gas extraction in the Northern Hemisphere could be a key source of black carbon pollution in the Arctic. But since international inventories of industrial emissions have gaps in observations and reporting, they often over- or underestimate the amount of pollutants. Gas flares are an often-overlooked subset in that incomplete dataset. Data from the VIIRS DNB on the Suomi NPP satellite were used to examine gas flare signals from nightlights and the nitrogen dioxide retrievals for four regions around the planet; only the Bakken Formation in North Dakota is shown here. Levels of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide were found to rise about 1.5 percent per year at Bakken. This means the concentration of black carbon produced by those flares was also likely on the rise. Such local or regional nightlight data as are described here clearly show the potential for global consequences.

We can recall the tragedy of mishandled disasters and see its vivid evidence:

Lights Out—Puerto Rico

Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico with devastating force in September 2017. Flooding, downed trees, and toppled power lines made many roads impassable. Most of the electricity grid and telecommunications network were knocked offline, leaving 1.5 million people without power. For many locations power wasn’t restored for weeks and even for up to 11 months in some locations. The long power outages, in part, led to the historic property, economic, and life losses in the storm’s aftermath. While 64 people died from direct storm impacts (i.e., via structural collapse, flying debris, floods, and drownings), an estimated 700 to 8400 excess deaths were associated with long-duration disruptions to essential services.

..and the effect of war:

Conflict in the Middle East—Syria

Six years of war in Syria have had a devastating effect on millions of its people. One of the most catastrophic impacts has been on the country’s electricity network. The left and middle images (below) were created using two separate nightlight datasets from the VIIRS DNB on the Suomi NPP satellite for 2012 and 2016...

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

— • 3.5 • —

I actually preferred this to the Earth book that I read beforehand. Though it started with what felt like a science lesson in light and instruments, I quite enjoyed the images and information that followed.

There was all sorts of examples surrounding both natural lights, such as lightning and forest fires, to man made lights ranging from cities to fishing boats. I found it especially interesting to see comparisons of the same place over different years highlighting how areas have developed and expanded, as well as examples of how natural disasters or even Wars have instead caused the amount of light in some areas to decrease.

There is however only so much info on lights you can absorb before you start going slightly mad and I did find myself speeding through the last few sections. I feel like this is something I would prefer to have watched a video of with narration, but I’m glad I checked it out nonetheless and big thanks to NASA for making these available for free. I look forward to reading some more spacey ones next.

[Bobbi Galvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fascinating! Fires, volcanoes, moonlight, storms and crowded areas of the world as seen from the NASA satellites.