City lights from space
Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore took this photograph of the Great Lakes and central U.S. from the International Space Station on Dec. 7, 2014.
At night, human settlements can be seen as street lighting illuminates the sky.
San Francisco Bay
An urban sprawl engulfs San Francisco Bay in a sea of lights. The three bridges – Oakland Bay Bridge, San Mateo Bridge and Dumbarton Bridge – glow as straight lines connecting the coasts. From top right going clockwise, freeways pass through Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, San Jose, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Mateo and San Francisco.
The bright lights of the cities are themselves surrounded by natural parks. Past the coastal Eastern Bay Regional Parks to the right, the cities of Pleasanton and Walnut Creek keep the dark wilderness at bay with their street lighting. To the left, apart from the Half Moon Bay Airport on the coast, the blackness of the Pacific Ocean prevails.
This image was taken on December 23, 2012 from the International Space Station.
The European Space Agency developed an automatic camera tripod that compensates for the speed of the Space Station flying at 28,800 km/h to take sharper pictures at night.
Naples, Italy
Taken at night from the International Space Station, this picture is easily recognizable as Naples, Italy because of the black hole in the bright lights: Mount Vesuvius. Understandably, few people live on the still-active volcano, meaning no street lights or houses illuminate the area.
The image was taken on a clear night from 400 km above but it was not cloud-free around Naples. The top half of the image shows grey clouds.
Tianjin, China
Tianjin, China.
Fans of the images made from the International Space Station are trying to crowdsource identifying locations of many of the images.
Liege, Belgium
Seen from the International Space Station at night, Liège, or Luik in Flemish, lights up like a neural network, revealing the city’s long history. The Meuse river that flows through the city center can hardly be seen between the city lights.
Main pathways — the brighter-lit motorways — link Liege to neighboring cities and countries: Luxembourg and France at the bottom of the picture, Germany to the right and the Netherlands above.
Subtle differences across international borders are noticeable. The lighting around the city of Aachen, Germany, at the top right, has a greener tone than the strong yellow seen in Belgium. A motorway leaving Liège that heads straight up in the picture connects the city to Maastricht in the Netherlands. In this image the road seems to end as the light disappears. In reality, Belgium’s northern neighbors do not use the same lighting scheme.
This clear picture was taken using ESA’s Nightpod that helps astronauts track objects on Earth from the International Space Station. Following Earth’s motion automatically, the tripod allows clear images in low lighting with off-the-shelf professional cameras from 400 kilometers above earth.
Berlin, Germany
Berlin, Germany.
New York
New York City from a distance of 222 nautical miles, January 20, 2013.
Detroit
Detroit, Mich. and Windsor, Ontario (top), Jan. 18, 2013.
St. Louis
St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 18, 2013.
Calgary, Alberta
South China Seas
Fishing boats use bright lights to attract fish to their nets in the South China Sea, Nov. 15, 2013.
Cities and street lights are not the only things visible from the International Space Station at night.
The village at the center is unidentified. The image was taken by an astronaut on Expedition 30 and the frame number is 172306.
Cairo, Egypt
Cairo, Egypt, Dec. 18, 2012.
New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana on April 17, 2011.
Los Angeles and southern California
Los Angeles and southern California on April 17, 2011 from 185 miles nautical miles above.
Earth at night
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took this image of Earth from the International Space Station and commented: “I feel we’re navigating on a black sea sprinkled with stars and Earth with its moving clouds is the sky.”
Earth’s atmosphere is visible surrounding our planet with a greenish–yellow hue. Under the clouds, city lights shine brightly.
Cristoforetti will spend almost six months on the Space Station conducting science and maintaining the weightless research centre.
Follow Cristoforetti and her mission via samanthacristoforetti.esa.int