Fishing boats illuminate the Arabian Sea along India’s west coast with green lights designed to attract squid, shrimp, sardines, and mackerel in this nighttime photograph from the International Space Station, orbiting 259 miles above Earth on Dec. 25, 2025.
Studying nighttime light offers a unique perspective for investigations into human behaviors, such as tracking the expansion of urban areas or assessing power outages caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes, and biological and ecological studies researching how artificial lights influences nature.
Crew members aboard the orbital lab have produced hundreds of thousands of images of the land, oceans, and atmosphere of Earth, and even of the Moon through Crew Earth Observations. Their photographs of Earth record how the planet changes over time due to human activity and natural events. This allows scientists to monitor disasters and direct response on the ground and study phenomena, from the movement of glaciers to urban wildlife.
Image credit: NASA/Zena Cardman
在这张2025年12月25日从距离地球259英里轨道上的国际空间站拍摄的夜景照片中，印度西海岸的阿拉伯海被渔船点亮，它们发出的绿光旨在吸引鱿鱼、虾、沙丁鱼和鲭鱼。
研究夜间灯光为调查人类行为提供了独特的视角，例如追踪城市区域的扩张，或评估飓风等自然灾害造成的停电情况；同时，它也有助于开展探讨人造光如何影响自然界的生物学和生态学研究。
轨道实验室上的乘组成员通过乘组地球观测（Crew Earth Observations）项目，拍摄了数十万张关于地球陆地、海洋、大气层甚至月球的图像。他们拍摄的地球照片记录了这颗星球随着时间推移因人类活动和自然事件而发生的变化。这使得科学家们能够监测灾害并指导地面响应，同时研究从冰川移动到城市野生动物的各类现象。
图片来源: NASA/Zena Cardman
