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Atlanta's holiday lights are bright enough to see from space
Image of lights in the Southeastern United States acquired on Dec. 26, 2013, by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on the Suomi NPP satellite.
Atlanta is one of the brightest cities in the South, according to NASA. Especially during the holidays.
As the space agency explains in a video released Wednesday, "Thanks to the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite, a joint mission between NASA and NOAA, scientists are presenting a new way of studying satellite data that can illustrate patterns in holiday lights, both during Christmas and the Holy Month of Ramadan. These new tools can provide new insights into how energy consumption behaviors vary across different cultural settings."
The satellite images, including those in the video and one taken in December 2013, show a cluster of lights around Atlanta larger than any other nearby Southeastern city -- larger than Nashville, Birmingham, Richmond and others.
The bright lights appear to get brighter during the holidays, which is no accident. According to NASA, it's part of a national trend which begins around Black Friday and stretches to the new year.
"It's a near ubiquitous signal," Miguel Román, a NASA scientist and member of the Suomi NPP Land Discipline Team, told CNET. "Despite being ethnically and religiously diverse, we found that the U.S. experiences a holiday increase that is present across most urban communities. These lighting patterns are tracking a national shared tradition."
Want to get a closer look? We've got a roundup of where you can see holiday lights across Atlanta.
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