Free tools · NASA Black Marble, night light
Night light in Nelson Mandela Bay
Night light seen from space, 2025: brightness 4.5 nW/cm²/sr on average, 41% of the land lit. 3.5% brighter than 2024; 20% darker 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
- 4.5Average brightnessnW/cm²/sr, NASA’s yearly product
- 41%Of the land lit21% bright (5 nW/cm²/sr or more)
- 20% darkerAgainst 20122012: 5.6 nW/cm²/sr, 34% lit
2026 so far (10 months, from the monthly figures): brightness 4.8 nW/cm²/sr, 42% lit. NASA’s yearly figure for 2026 comes early next year.
Every year since 2012
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| 2012 | brightness 5.6 nW/cm²/sr, 34% lit |
| 2013 | brightness 5.8 nW/cm²/sr, 35% lit |
| 2014 | brightness 5.7 nW/cm²/sr, 37% lit |
| 2015 | brightness 5.1 nW/cm²/sr, 36% lit |
| 2016 | brightness 5.3 nW/cm²/sr, 36% lit |
| 2017 | brightness 5.1 nW/cm²/sr, 35% lit |
| 2018 | brightness 4.9 nW/cm²/sr, 35% lit |
| 2019 | brightness 4.6 nW/cm²/sr, 35% lit |
| 2020 | brightness 4.4 nW/cm²/sr, 35% lit |
| 2021 | brightness 4.2 nW/cm²/sr, 35% lit |
| 2022 | brightness 4.3 nW/cm²/sr, 40% lit |
| 2023 | brightness 4.0 nW/cm²/sr, 40% lit |
| 2024 | brightness 4.3 nW/cm²/sr, 42% lit |
| 2025 | brightness 4.5 nW/cm²/sr, 41% 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 | 4.8 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5.2 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5.1 | ||
| 2025 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.6 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.2 | 5.0 |
| 2024 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 4.3 | 4.1 | 4.3 | 3.8 | 4.6 | 4.9 | 4.3 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.8 |
| 2023 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.4 | 3.8 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 4.2 | 3.9 | 3.8 | 4.2 | 4.5 |
| 2022 | 4.7 | 4.4 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.0 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.5 |
| 2021 | 4.1 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.1 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.4 |
| 2020 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.2 |
| 2019 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.4 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 4.9 | 4.8 | 4.8 |
| 2018 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 5.4 | 5.5 |
| 2017 | 5.3 | 5.2 | 5.4 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.5 | 5.2 | 4.8 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 5.1 |
| 2016 | 5.6 | 5.0 | 5.3 | 5.4 | 5.4 | 5.1 | 5.2 | 5.1 | 5.1 | 5.5 | 5.3 | 5.6 |
| 2015 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 5.3 | 5.3 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 4.9 | 5.4 |
| 2014 | 5.7 | 6.0 | 5.9 | 5.7 | 5.4 | 5.9 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 5.9 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 5.5 |
| 2013 | 5.6 | 5.7 | 5.8 | 5.3 | 5.9 | 5.7 | 5.8 | 5.7 | 6.2 | 6.0 | 5.9 | 6.3 |
| 2012 | 6.1 | 6.0 | 5.9 | 6.1 | 5.6 | 5.2 | 5.4 | 5.3 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.8 |
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 | 4.5 | 41% | 21% | 0% |
| 2024 | 4.3 | 42% | 21% | 0% |
| 2023 | 4.0 | 40% | 21% | 0% |
| 2022 | 4.3 | 40% | 21% | 0% |
| 2021 | 4.2 | 35% | 21% | 0% |
| 2020 | 4.4 | 35% | 22% | 0% |
| 2019 | 4.6 | 35% | 22% | 0% |
| 2018 | 4.9 | 35% | 22% | 0% |
| 2017 | 5.1 | 35% | 22% | 0% |
| 2016 | 5.3 | 36% | 22% | 0% |
| 2015 | 5.1 | 36% | 22% | 0% |
| 2014 | 5.7 | 37% | 22% | 0% |
| 2013 | 5.8 | 35% | 22% | 0% |
| 2012 | 5.6 | 34% | 21% | 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 60 wards, 2025by ward number
- Ward 16.0, 100% lit
- Ward 23.6, 35% lit
- Ward 321.9, 100% lit
- Ward 410.0, 100% lit
- Ward 519.7, 100% lit
- Ward 620.0, 100% lit
- Ward 730.5, 100% lit
- Ward 816.2, 100% lit
- Ward 919.9, 100% lit
- Ward 1017.2, 100% lit
- Ward 1141.0, 100% lit
- Ward 1210.1, 100% lit
- Ward 1321.4, 100% lit
- Ward 1433.3, 100% lit
- Ward 1538.0, 100% lit
- Ward 1628.5, 100% lit
- Ward 1726.0, 100% lit
- Ward 1823.0, 100% lit
- Ward 1921.2, 100% lit
- Ward 2023.5, 100% lit
- Ward 2120.1, 100% lit
- Ward 2224.6, 100% lit
- Ward 2321.4, 100% lit
- Ward 2421.8, 100% lit
- Ward 2524.7, 100% lit
- Ward 2627.8, 100% lit
- Ward 2720.2, 100% lit
- Ward 288.7, 100% lit
- Ward 295.2, 65% lit
- Ward 3010.2, 100% lit
- Ward 3113.0, 100% lit
- Ward 3213.1, 100% lit
- Ward 3312.1, 100% lit
- Ward 343.7, 100% lit
- Ward 3512.8, 100% lit
- Ward 367.8, 100% lit
- Ward 3711.7, 100% lit
- Ward 383.1, 57% lit
- Ward 3915.1, 100% lit
- Ward 401.4, 38% lit
- Ward 417.3, 100% lit
- Ward 423.2, 74% lit
- Ward 437.0, 100% lit
- Ward 444.4, 96% lit
- Ward 450.77, 17% lit
- Ward 4616.2, 100% lit
- Ward 478.9, 100% lit
- Ward 4820.6, 100% lit
- Ward 493.7, 46% lit
- Ward 5010.9, 100% lit
- Ward 513.2, 37% lit
- Ward 525.8, 86% lit
- Ward 530.52, 8.8% lit
- Ward 542.0, 31% lit
- Ward 5514.4, 100% lit
- Ward 5618.8, 100% lit
- Ward 576.8, 100% lit
- Ward 5817.8, 100% lit
- Ward 5912.5, 100% lit
- Ward 6016.1, 100% 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 Nelson Mandela Bay
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.