Start Date: End Date: Published Date Data Date
Data acquired 2016 3600 x 1800 761 KB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 3600 x 1800 4 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 13500 x 6750 8 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 13500 x 6750 61 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 29 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 306 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 7 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 163 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 28 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 296 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 20 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 258 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 56 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 480 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 13 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 220 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 37 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 370 MB - GeoTIFF
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 14 MB - JPEG
Data acquired 2016 21600 x 21600 227 MB - GeoTIFF
Satellite images of Earth at night—often referred to as “night lights”—have been a curiosity for the public and a tool of fundamental research for at least 25 years. They have provided a broad, beautiful picture, showing how humans have shaped the planet and lit up the darkness. Produced every decade or so, such maps have spawned hundreds of pop-culture uses and dozens of economic, social science, and environmental research projects.
These images show Earth’s night lights as observed in 2016. The data were reprocessed with new compositing techniques that select the best cloud-free nights in each month over each land mass.
The images are available as JPEG and GeoTIFF, in three different resolutions: 0.1 degrees (3600x1800), 3km (13500x6750), and 500m (86400x43200). The 500m global map is divided into tiles (21600x21600) according to a gridding scheme.
Read more about these data and the processing used to produce the imagery:
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Román, NASA GSFC.
Published May 16, 2019 Data acquired 2016