Free tools · NASA Black Marble, night light

Night light in City of Matlosana

Night light seen from space, 2025: brightness 0.88 nW/cm²/sr on average, 12% of the land lit. 11% brighter than 2024; 2.3% 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

0.88Average brightnessnW/cm²/sr, NASA’s yearly product
12%Of the land lit4.9% bright (5 nW/cm²/sr or more)
2.3% brighterAgainst 20122012: 0.86 nW/cm²/sr, 9.8% lit

2026 so far (10 months, from the monthly figures): brightness 0.98 nW/cm²/sr, 12% lit. NASA’s yearly figure for 2026 comes early next year.

Every year since 2012

Each year’s average brightness (nW/cm²/sr) from NASA’s yearly product. Bars start at zero.

Show the numbers

Night light each year, 2012 to 2025: every figure
When or what	Figure
2012	brightness 0.86 nW/cm²/sr, 9.8% lit
2013	brightness 0.83 nW/cm²/sr, 9.8% lit
2014	brightness 0.85 nW/cm²/sr, 10% lit
2015	brightness 0.77 nW/cm²/sr, 9.8% lit
2016	brightness 0.81 nW/cm²/sr, 9.6% lit
2017	brightness 0.84 nW/cm²/sr, 9.9% lit
2018	brightness 0.82 nW/cm²/sr, 9.5% lit
2019	brightness 0.81 nW/cm²/sr, 9.3% lit
2020	brightness 0.83 nW/cm²/sr, 9.8% lit
2021	brightness 0.80 nW/cm²/sr, 10% lit
2022	brightness 0.75 nW/cm²/sr, 11% lit
2023	brightness 0.73 nW/cm²/sr, 11% lit
2024	brightness 0.79 nW/cm²/sr, 11% lit
2025	brightness 0.88 nW/cm²/sr, 12% lit

Month by month

Average brightness each month since January 2012 (nW/cm²/sr). Shaded: 2022 and 2023, the years of the heaviest load-shedding. A gap is a month seen too little.

Every month since January 2012brightness, nW/cm²/sr

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2026	0.95	0.96	1.1	0.96	0.92	0.98	1.1	0.99	0.96	0.98
2025	0.78	0.97	0.84	0.80	0.88	0.90	0.94	0.94	0.99	0.95	0.85	0.86
2024	0.78	0.62	0.73	0.72	0.73	0.71	0.88	0.96	0.89	1.0	0.99	0.77
2023	0.74	0.73	0.70	0.66	0.69	0.81	0.73	0.81	0.73	0.89	0.71	0.82
2022	0.73	0.75	0.76	0.71	0.75	0.77	0.74	0.85	0.78	0.82	0.84	0.72
2021	0.83	0.70	0.77	0.81	0.82	0.79	0.86	0.88	0.87	0.80	0.75	0.65
2020	0.77	0.77	0.80	0.77	0.79	0.78	0.86	0.89	0.87	0.89	0.85	1.0
2019	0.73	0.72	0.75	0.76	0.76	0.85	0.79	0.90	0.85	0.91	0.84	0.85
2018	0.79	0.73	0.85	0.80	0.80	0.83	0.83	0.83	0.86	0.82	0.94	0.80
2017	0.75	0.88	0.82	0.85	0.83	0.85	0.87	0.88	0.94	0.85	0.83	0.79
2016	0.72	0.68	0.71	0.84	0.79	0.82	0.86	0.87	0.90	0.88	0.85	0.92
2015	0.68	0.66	0.72	0.77	0.82	0.81	0.83	0.86	0.85	0.75	0.80	0.76
2014	0.86	0.72	0.97	0.87	0.84	0.81	0.82	0.92	0.89	0.99	0.84	0.82
2013	0.80	0.82	0.80	0.79	0.82	0.85	0.87	0.84	0.88	0.86	0.82	0.89
2012	0.94	0.81	0.83	0.92	0.96	0.85	0.84	0.87	0.89	0.85	0.82	0.75

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	0.88	12%	4.9%	0%
2024	0.79	11%	4.6%	0%
2023	0.73	11%	4.4%	0%
2022	0.75	11%	4.5%	0%
2021	0.80	10%	4.7%	0%
2020	0.83	9.8%	4.8%	0%
2019	0.81	9.3%	4.7%	0%
2018	0.82	9.5%	4.7%	0%
2017	0.84	9.9%	4.8%	0%
2016	0.81	9.6%	4.7%	0%
2015	0.77	9.8%	4.6%	0%
2014	0.85	10%	4.8%	0%
2013	0.83	9.8%	4.8%	0%
2012	0.86	9.8%	4.8%	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 39 wards, 2025by ward number

Ward 10.11, 1.8% lit
Ward 23.5, 44% lit
Ward 319.3, 100% lit
Ward 40.12, 1.7% lit
Ward 520.0, 100% lit
Ward 65.9, 100% lit
Ward 715.1, 100% lit
Ward 818.8, 100% lit
Ward 923.2, 100% lit
Ward 1028.8, 100% lit
Ward 1111.4, 100% lit
Ward 120.23, 2.3% lit
Ward 1317.9, 100% lit
Ward 1412.1, 100% lit
Ward 156.8, 87% lit
Ward 1616.0, 100% lit
Ward 1717.5, 100% lit
Ward 180.15, 3.5% lit
Ward 1914.5, 100% lit
Ward 2019.0, 100% lit
Ward 213.5, 74% lit
Ward 227.3, 100% lit
Ward 234.4, 56% lit
Ward 248.3, 65% lit
Ward 2517.3, 100% lit
Ward 266.0, 79% lit
Ward 274.0, 71% lit
Ward 280.40, 6.8% lit
Ward 294.1, 79% lit
Ward 303.2, 42% lit
Ward 318.3, 77% lit
Ward 323.1, 59% lit
Ward 332.6, 44% lit
Ward 342.0, 33% lit
Ward 358.8, 100% lit
Ward 364.1, 87% lit
Ward 372.3, 26% lit
Ward 3813.7, 100% lit
Ward 3911.8, 95% 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 City of Matlosana

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.