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Earth at Night: An Image of the Nighttime Earth Based on Cloud-Free Satellite Photographs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Woodruff T. Sullivan III
Woodruff T. Sullivan III*
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy FM-20, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

Abstract

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An image of the entire earth at nighttime is assembled for the first time. It consists of a mosaic of photographs, all taken at local midnight in the 400-1100 nm band, made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program over the period 1974-84. Photographs were selected for freedom from clouds, lack of moonlight, high sensitivity, and suitability to illustrate various temporal phenomena. The image primarily reveals activities of humankind such as urban street lighting, rangeland burning, slash-and-burn agriculture, natural gas burnoffs in oilfields, and squidding. Although light pollution in urban areas creates a striking map, at the same time it devastates astronomical observation and removes much of humankind from any familiarity with the night sky.

Type
Light Pollution
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 112: Light Pollution, Radio Interference, and Space Debris , 1991 , pp. 11 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1991

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