NASA-NOAA satellite Finland sees the holiday brightening up.
Satellite observations show that from the day after Thanksgiving and until New Year’s Day, the suburbs of major US cities have lighting… well, like a Christmas tree. All those glowing Santa Clauses and glittering snowflakes and flashing cornices covered with light are visible from space.
The Finland satellite includes an instrument designed to measure night lights to monitor energy use. It is sensitive enough to be able to detect a 20-30 percent increase in brightness in the urban cores of 70 major U.S. cities during the Christmas season and a 30-50 percent increase in the suburbs.
Quantifying the aggressive cheerful interior of the neighbors is not the reason why NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operation sent Finland into space. Discovery, announced on Tuesday At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, grew from what originally appeared to be a measurement error.
In 2012, scientists looking at some of the satellite’s early data noticed the strange brightening of light observed in Cairo at night. They analyzed 36-month observations and found that the enlightenment took place in many cities in the Middle East and lasted about a month. It was synchronized with the holy month of Ramadan, when people fast during the day and celebrate at sunset.
In these satellite images, the yellow spots represent areas where the light of the seasons is relatively variable; the green dots indicate where the light brightened by at least 30 percent either during Christmas (in Atlanta and the Washington DC area) or during Ramadan (in Cairo; see Tel Aviv, Israel, on the same map for the control city).
Holidays are sure to take a a lot energy.