Free tools · NASA Black Marble, night light
Night light in Mangaung
Night light seen from space, 2025: brightness 0.76 nW/cm²/sr on average, 7.3% of the land lit. 1.3% brighter than 2024; 33% brighter than 2012.
Night light is the light a satellite sees from space at about 1:30 in the morning: street lights, buildings, mines, factories, harbours and fires. NASA takes out moonlight, haze and stray light, leaves out cloudy nights and sets faint glow to zero. Brightness is the light given off, in nanowatts per square centimetre per steradian (nW/cm²/sr), averaged over the place; “lit” is the share of the land giving off 1 or more, twice the faint glow NASA treats as noise.
What it is not: it cannot tell the grid from solar or a generator, who pays for the light, how many people live there or how well off they are. A load-shedding month mixes dark nights with lit ones, fires and flares can light a month up, and a cloudy month rests on fewer nights.
2025
- 0.76Average brightnessnW/cm²/sr, NASA’s yearly product
- 7.3%Of the land lit3.4% bright (5 nW/cm²/sr or more)
- 33% brighterAgainst 20122012: 0.57 nW/cm²/sr, 5.0% lit
2026 so far (10 months, from the monthly figures): brightness 0.79 nW/cm²/sr, 7.7% lit. NASA’s yearly figure for 2026 comes early next year.
Every year since 2012
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| 2012 | brightness 0.57 nW/cm²/sr, 5.0% lit |
| 2013 | brightness 0.66 nW/cm²/sr, 5.4% lit |
| 2014 | brightness 0.76 nW/cm²/sr, 5.8% lit |
| 2015 | brightness 0.78 nW/cm²/sr, 6.0% lit |
| 2016 | brightness 0.81 nW/cm²/sr, 6.0% lit |
| 2017 | brightness 0.78 nW/cm²/sr, 5.9% lit |
| 2018 | brightness 0.71 nW/cm²/sr, 5.6% lit |
| 2019 | brightness 0.70 nW/cm²/sr, 5.8% lit |
| 2020 | brightness 0.65 nW/cm²/sr, 5.8% lit |
| 2021 | brightness 0.65 nW/cm²/sr, 6.0% lit |
| 2022 | brightness 0.67 nW/cm²/sr, 6.5% lit |
| 2023 | brightness 0.72 nW/cm²/sr, 6.9% lit |
| 2024 | brightness 0.75 nW/cm²/sr, 7.2% lit |
| 2025 | brightness 0.76 nW/cm²/sr, 7.3% lit |
Month by month
Every month since January 2012brightness, nW/cm²/sr
| Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 0.77 | 0.76 | 0.84 | 0.81 | 0.69 | 0.86 | 0.90 | 0.75 | 0.74 | 0.75 | ||
| 2025 | 0.74 | 0.68 | 0.69 | 0.66 | 0.72 | 0.80 | 0.77 | 0.81 | 0.90 | 0.78 | 0.74 | 0.79 |
| 2024 | 0.71 | 0.71 | 0.77 | 0.64 | 0.70 | 0.67 | 0.79 | 0.88 | 0.80 | 0.88 | 0.79 | 0.78 |
| 2023 | 0.67 | 0.71 | 0.68 | 0.69 | 0.69 | 0.76 | 0.75 | 0.86 | 0.78 | 0.73 | 0.77 | 0.65 |
| 2022 | 0.65 | 0.65 | 0.63 | 0.66 | 0.63 | 0.67 | 0.66 | 0.72 | 0.73 | 0.81 | 0.67 | 0.75 |
| 2021 | 0.58 | 0.60 | 0.59 | 0.64 | 0.64 | 0.66 | 0.68 | 0.73 | 0.74 | 0.68 | 0.58 | 0.60 |
| 2020 | 0.60 | 0.69 | 0.65 | 0.61 | 0.64 | 0.66 | 0.71 | 0.70 | 0.66 | 0.70 | 0.63 | 0.61 |
| 2019 | 0.67 | 0.66 | 0.65 | 0.64 | 0.70 | 0.74 | 0.71 | 0.76 | 0.77 | 0.76 | 0.70 | 0.67 |
| 2018 | 0.75 | 0.74 | 0.68 | 0.69 | 0.69 | 0.75 | 0.77 | 0.71 | 0.70 | 0.70 | 0.75 | 0.69 |
| 2017 | 0.74 | 0.81 | 0.76 | 0.79 | 0.80 | 0.82 | 0.79 | 0.80 | 0.88 | 0.78 | 0.79 | 0.69 |
| 2016 | 0.82 | 0.82 | 0.77 | 0.79 | 0.82 | 0.82 | 0.89 | 0.83 | 0.89 | 0.79 | 0.80 | 0.79 |
| 2015 | 0.66 | 0.75 | 0.75 | 0.77 | 0.85 | 0.81 | 0.77 | 0.82 | 0.87 | 0.81 | 0.78 | 0.77 |
| 2014 | 0.66 | 0.64 | 0.86 | 0.73 | 0.77 | 0.77 | 0.82 | 0.78 | 0.80 | 0.84 | 0.72 | 0.73 |
| 2013 | 0.55 | 0.62 | 0.68 | 0.63 | 0.67 | 0.68 | 0.69 | 0.68 | 0.70 | 0.71 | 0.64 | 0.71 |
| 2012 | 0.63 | 0.53 | 0.56 | 0.64 | 0.60 | 0.53 | 0.57 | 0.59 | 0.60 | 0.57 | 0.55 | 0.55 |
Hover or tap a month for its lit share, how much NASA filled from earlier months and how many clear nights it rests on. Every figure is also in the API.
Every year
| Year | Brightness (nW/cm²/sr) | Lit | Bright | Filled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 0.76 | 7.3% | 3.4% | 0% |
| 2024 | 0.75 | 7.2% | 3.3% | 0% |
| 2023 | 0.72 | 6.9% | 3.2% | 0% |
| 2022 | 0.67 | 6.5% | 3.1% | 0% |
| 2021 | 0.65 | 6.0% | 3.1% | 0% |
| 2020 | 0.65 | 5.8% | 3.1% | 0% |
| 2019 | 0.70 | 5.8% | 3.2% | 0% |
| 2018 | 0.71 | 5.6% | 3.2% | 0% |
| 2017 | 0.78 | 5.9% | 3.3% | 0% |
| 2016 | 0.81 | 6.0% | 3.3% | 0% |
| 2015 | 0.78 | 6.0% | 3.2% | 0% |
| 2014 | 0.76 | 5.8% | 3.2% | 0% |
| 2013 | 0.66 | 5.4% | 3.0% | 0% |
| 2012 | 0.57 | 5.0% | 2.9% | 0% |
Lit: the share of the land giving off 1 nW/cm²/sr or more. Bright: 5 or more. Filled: the share NASA filled from earlier months for want of a clear night.
Its 51 wards, 2025by ward number
- Ward 137.9, 100% lit
- Ward 239.6, 100% lit
- Ward 334.5, 100% lit
- Ward 435.3, 100% lit
- Ward 550.3, 100% lit
- Ward 631.0, 100% lit
- Ward 737.0, 100% lit
- Ward 822.9, 100% lit
- Ward 913.1, 100% lit
- Ward 104.0, 64% lit
- Ward 1125.9, 100% lit
- Ward 1221.8, 100% lit
- Ward 1343.4, 100% lit
- Ward 1434.5, 100% lit
- Ward 1542.0, 100% lit
- Ward 1622.5, 100% lit
- Ward 170.39, 9.6% lit
- Ward 180.17, 3.5% lit
- Ward 1935.0, 100% lit
- Ward 2031.2, 100% lit
- Ward 2110.9, 83% lit
- Ward 224.4, 64% lit
- Ward 2329.3, 100% lit
- Ward 2425.9, 100% lit
- Ward 255.3, 52% lit
- Ward 2625.5, 100% lit
- Ward 275.1, 61% lit
- Ward 287.8, 72% lit
- Ward 2919.9, 100% lit
- Ward 3016.4, 97% lit
- Ward 3117.9, 100% lit
- Ward 3214.9, 100% lit
- Ward 3314.7, 100% lit
- Ward 3410.5, 98% lit
- Ward 3517.4, 100% lit
- Ward 3617.2, 100% lit
- Ward 370.89, 11% lit
- Ward 388.7, 100% lit
- Ward 392.2, 25% lit
- Ward 409.0, 92% lit
- Ward 410.13, 3.0% lit
- Ward 423.4, 51% lit
- Ward 430.09, 2.0% lit
- Ward 440.22, 4.1% lit
- Ward 4522.9, 100% lit
- Ward 4613.6, 100% lit
- Ward 479.7, 100% lit
- Ward 4810.0, 100% lit
- Ward 494.2, 81% lit
- Ward 500.08, 1.3% lit
- Ward 510.21, 4.5% lit
Listed by number, not ranked: night light shows where light is, not how people live. Each ward’s page sets it against its own past and its municipality.
Every municipality · Everything we hold for Mangaung
Source
NASA Black Marble night lights, VNP46A3 (monthly) and VNP46A4 (yearly), collection 2, from NASA’s LAADS DAAC (doi:10.5067/VIIRS/VNP46A3.002 and doi:10.5067/VIIRS/VNP46A4.002). The product’s page.
What we changed: we added up NASA’s light over each 2026 ward (each pixel, about 460 m across, split in four and given to the ward holding each quarter) and added the wards up to municipalities, districts and provinces.
The satellite (Suomi NPP) passes at about 1:30 in the morning. NASA’s monthly figure is the mean of the month’s clear nights; a pixel with no clear night is filled from earlier months, and that share is shown. The yearly figure is NASA’s own mean of the year’s clear nights, so it is close to, not exactly, the mean of the twelve months.
Dataset: night light by ward, release 2026-11-13.