Earth's Night Lights Crackle Under NASA Satellite (Photos)

NASA's Suomi NPP satellite has captured a series of breathtaking images of the Earth at night, highlighting even faint signals such as auroras, wildfires, reflected moonlight, and gas flares, reports NBC News.

The orbiter used a tool known as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) as it hovered from the northern to southern poles. "Artificial lighting is an excellent remote-sensing observable and proxy for human activity," explains Chris Elvidge of the Earth Observation Group. "It's very high quality data."

NASA's official Earth Observatory site adds that the VIIRS can be of use to social scientists and demographers to gather data, electric companies and media to cover blackouts, and planners and environmental groups to "monitor human development around parks and wildlife refuges."

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researcher Steve Miller urges, "For all the reasons that we need to see Earth during the day, we also need to see Earth at night. Unlike humans, the Earth never sleeps."

Researchers were surprised to find that the upper atmosphere amplifies clouds and ice more effectively than infrared imaging due to an effect known as "night glow."

Miller notes, "We discovered by accident that the sensor can take advantage of this."

"This isn't your father's low light sensor. I think this is a new frontier for science in low-light imaging," he adds.