Whenever a neighbor has an elaborate Christmas light display people always joke that you can “see it from space”, but now you really can.
Nasa recently released footage shot by the Suomi NPP satellite that shows a noticeable increase in brightness over cities in the US and the Middle East during various holidays and festivals.
The areas marked in green on the map above are 50% brighter during Christmastime.
Miguel Roman of NASA tells the Independent in the UK, “When we started looking at the data at night over the US we were expecting to see a lot of stability in the night time lights. We were really surprised to see a vibrant increase in activity during the holidays particularly in areas around the suburbs.”
This new data can help researchers measure energy usage and also gives insight in to culture.
Watch the video below:
