For several years, the group has been building tools and techniques to gather a better, more consistent signal from nighttime images and then using them to examine human-driven patterns. We are looking at human activities,” said Miguel Román, director of the Earth from Space Institute at USRA and a principal investigator of the “ Black Marble” research team. We are not just looking at where the roads are these images are telling us when and if the roads are being used.

“The lights provide a different perspective on human settlements. The detailed images below focus on lighting changes in Jianghan District, a commercial area of Wuhan, and nearby residential areas. In the wide views above, note how highways and metropolitan areas grow dimmer after the lockdown. The images were acquired before and after transportation networks and most business activities were shut down in the province of 60 million people. Labels marked with “G” or “S” indicate highways where there appeared to be a pronounced change.

The images on this page show changes in activity around the city of Wuhan, China, between January 19 and February 4, 2020. State Department, Chinese authorities suspended air, road, and rail travel in the area and placed restrictions on other activities in late January 2020 in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the region.Ī research team has been analyzing images of Earth at night to decipher patterns of energy use, transportation, migration, and other economic and social activities. For some researchers, those lights not only speak to where we live, but how.Ī team of scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and Universities Space Research Association (USRA) has detected signs of the recent shutdown of business and transportation around Hubei province in central China. The nighttime lights of cities, highways, and other infrastructure are fingerprints of how civilization has spread across the planet. Beyond their beauty, images of Earth at night have a practical use.

Night satellite view of earth