Spectacular ISS shots of cities at night (pictures)

1 of 13NASA

Two Koreas

Through a project dubbed Cities at Night, volunteers are being asked to help catalog and geotag thousands of photos of Earth at night taken from the International Space Station. This particular image has already been positively identified as showing North Korea (the dark area) and South Korea (the brightly light area in the lower right) at night.

2 of 13NASA

Spain and Portugal

This image, another one that's easily confirmed, shows the Iberian Peninsula at night, including all of Spain and Portugal. Madrid is the bright spot just above the center.

3 of 13NASA

Paris at Night

Paris may be one of the few places on Earth that looks less romantic when observed from orbit. Can you pick out the Moulin Rouge or Eiffel Tower?

4 of 13NASA

Auroras near Budapest

The exact location of this photo hasn't been confirmed yet, but it was likely taken somewhere over Hungary or another part of Eastern Europe. The green and blue lights of the aurora borealis are visible on the right.

5 of 13NASA

Sunrise approaches Scotland

The crowd's best guess on this one is that it shows Scotland just before daybreak.

6 of 13NASA

NYC

This should be unmistakable to particularly astute urbanites as a shot of the New York City area. The bright lights of midtown Manhattan are visible just to the left of center, with the dark rectangle of Central Park just to the left of that.

7 of 13NASA

Island of Hawaii

Here's one spot where astronomers were likely looking back out at space at the same moment this picture was snapped. This is the island of Hawaii, which is basically just a handful of big volcanoes with some small cities clinging to their edges. On top of the volcano Mauna Kea at the center of the island is one of the most important collections of terrestrial telescopes on Earth, including the powerful Keck telescopes.

8 of 13NASA

Tokyo

Earth's largest megalopolis at night. This is Tokyo, Japan from the ISS. Look closely and you can even spot ships in Tokyo Bay.

9 of 13NASA

Eastern edge of the Mediterranean

Here's a shot of the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea at night. All of the major cities in this one have already been positively identified.

10 of 13NASA

Shanghai

China shines brightly in this photo of central Shanghai at night. This shot seems to be more close-up, but those lights certainly give Tokyo and New York a run for their money when it comes to being crowned king of light pollution.

11 of 13NASA

Burma

Another dark country, this photo captured both portions of the ISS and of the sparsely lit nation of Burma.

12 of 13NASA

Sochi?

This represents my contribution to the citizen science project to catalog these photos. While the best guess the community had so far placed it somewhere in the nation of Georgia, I recognized it as a photo I saw last winter of Sochi, Russia, during the Winter Olympics.