Overview
- NASA’s global night-lights change map, released April 16, charts where artificial lighting brightened or dimmed between 2014 and 2022.
- The Uttar Pradesh–Bihar corridor shows one of the sharpest increases in brightness, with Bihar appearing among the most prominent regions on the map.
- Researchers Tian Li and Zhe Zhu processed about 1.6 million images from the VIIRS sensor using a new algorithm to create a high‑resolution view that can even pick out small sources like toll booths.
- In the visualization, gold marks areas that grew brighter and purple marks declines, with much of India and China brightening and large parts of Europe dimming.
- NASA’s Miguel Roman said the data can inform energy‑sector insights and national security uses, underscoring its value for tracking how and where power access expands.