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.
Keywords: NASA images, Diwali night, India satellite images, Earth at Night
It is incredible how many people fall for the assumption that India is incredibly brighter on Diwali night in terms of total light output. This article clearly says the truth, that the light increase is so minuscule it won't even register.
This is akin to people using flashes on their cameras to record sports events in stadiums that are taking place several hundred feet away. The flashes won't make any difference since the light from each individual flash has no chance of illuminating any subject so far away. But people continue to flash!
That is misleading , please take action against this people that are filling space by posting wrong reports even without checking the basic truth
The picture is part of Earthlights by NASA, that captures the world city illumination levels, they are not Diwali lights.
Actual pictures = google search = "earthlight nasa wiki"
It would be useful and informative to have a similar picture taken on a non-Diwali night. Request that such a picture be published in your paper (if available , of course)
Oh my Good God, NASA released an exemplary image of India. But I wonder
that next time they will come up with a real picture featuring and
depicting the pollution and smoke that actually is tagged along with the
vivid deceptive light of crackers. I
It would be nice to see a black and white satellite imagery of India from NASA on some January non-festive night so that one can compare with the Diwali lights.
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