Lights on Earth's surface - 1992 to 2008
author: NASA/NOAA/NGDC/Novapix
reference: t-glb54-00030
Image Size 300 DPI: 67 * 33 cm
Composite map of the world assembled from data acquired by satellites. This is a color composite of three years - 1992, 2000, 2008 - of DMSP nighttime lights. Each year has been assigned to one of the primary colors: 1992 = blue, 2000 = green, 2008 = red. The contrast has been enhanced to show all the detected lights, including the dim lighting often detected in populated rural areas. Locations that had bright lighting in all three years are white. There are many rural areas in India and elsewhere that have a bronze color, indicating that they had no detected lighting in 1992 and dim lighting detected in both 2000 and 2008. Notice the areas of blue lighting in several parts of the Former Soviet Union, the result of collapse and loss of lighting in the mid-1990's.