NASA releases map of India on Diwali night
- PTI A satellite imagery of India on Diwali night released by NASA. Photo: PTI
- PTI NASA releases map of India on Diwali night. PTI graphic
NASA, the national space agency of the U.S., on Thursday released a
black and white satellite imagery of India Diwali night 2012, cautioning
people against the fake image in circulation on the social media.
“On November 12, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite
(VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this night-time view of
southern Asia,” NASA said releasing a picture of India on this Diwali
night.
“The image is based on data collected by the VIIRS ‘day- night band’,
which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to
near-infrared. The image has been brightened to make the city lights
easier to distinguish,” it said.
NASA said most of the bright areas in the imagery released by it are
cities and towns in India. “India is home to more than 1.2 billion
people and has 30 cities with populations over 1 million,” it said.
Cities in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan are also visible near the edges of the image.
“An image that claims to show the region lit for Diwali has been
circulating on social media websites and the Internet in recent years.
In fact, it does not show what it claims.
That image, based on data from the Operational Linescan System flown on
US Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, is a
colour—composite created in 2003 by NOAA scientist Chris Elvidge to
highlight population growth over time,” NASA said.
“In that image, white areas show city lights that were visible prior to
1992, while blue, green, and red shades indicate city lights that became
visible in 1992, 1998, and 2003 respectively,” it said.
“In reality, any extra light produced during Diwali is so subtle that it
is likely imperceptible when observed from space,” NASA said.
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