A side-by-side comparison of a city at night, showing the same area illuminated by warm, orange-toned sodium lights on the left and cooler, blue-toned LED lights on the right.Miami in 2012 lit by sodium vapor, left, and in 2025, lit by multi-colored LEDs. | Photos by Don Pettit / NASA

Over the past 15 years, cities at night around the world have undergone a transformation: instead of being bathed in warm, orange sodium vapor light, they’re now lit up by brighter, white LED lights.

NASA astronaut and photographer Don Pettit, who has been living on and off at the International Space Station since 2002, has documented this transition and recently shared a series of photos that starkly demonstrate what that change looks like from space.

“I have spent 23 years documenting the global LED transition of city lighting from space,” Pettit, who took some of the early photos on film cameras, writes on X.

“Across my four missions to the ISS, I have photographed every major city on Earth, building a data set of the gradual replacement of sodium vapor lighting with LEDs.”

‹ › A satellite view of a brightly lit urban area at night, showing a dense grid of city lights along a dark coastline. An aerial night view of a brightly lit city grid along a dark coastline, with major roads and highways forming distinct patterns. ‹ › A satellite view of a brightly lit city at night, surrounded by smaller clusters of light against a dark background. A high-contrast, overhead view of a sprawling city at night, showing a dense grid of illuminated streets and buildings against a dark background.
‹ › A nighttime aerial view of a sprawling city, showing a dense network of bright yellow and white street lights against a dark background. An overhead night view of a sprawling, densely lit city grid surrounded by dark, unlit natural terrain.

Pettit explains that the “warmer, yellow-orange of gas discharge lamps has been phased out worldwide to multi-colored LEDs, citing energy savings and environmental reasons.”

“Widespread adoption has markedly changed the way our cities look from orbit, and as many have pointed out, how they feel to those on the ground,” he adds.

‹ › An aerial night view of a brightly lit city, showing a network of illuminated roads and buildings against a dark background. A satellite view of a brightly lit city at night, featuring a prominent river winding through the dense urban grid. ‹ › An aerial night view of a city grid illuminated by streetlights, showing a dense cluster of lights surrounded by darkness. An aerial night view of a city grid illuminated by streetlights and buildings, surrounded by dark, undeveloped land. ‹ › A satellite view of a city at night, showing a dense cluster of golden and white lights against a black background. A nighttime satellite view of a city’s glowing street grid, featuring a distinct, elongated urban sprawl extending southward.

As Pettit’s images show, these huge metropolitan areas have a very different nighttime glow in the 2020s; the only exception is Hong Kong (below), which shows the special administrative region maintaining its sodium vapor lighting, while nearby Shenzhen has burst into LED light.

‹ › A satellite view of a cluster of city lights at night, showing interconnected urban areas against a dark background. A satellite view of a coastline at night, showing bright clusters of city lights against a dark landscape and water.

The change from sodium-vapor streetlights to LEDs across the world was mainly driven by cost: LEDs are cheaper to run and easier to control.

However, many photographers have lamented the loss of sodium vapor lights, believing the warmer sodium vapor lighting just looks better on camera. Drive, a 2011 film that was shot mostly at night on the streets of L.A., was one of the last movies shot under the orange-yellow hue. Had the film been shot any later, it would have lost much of its charm and atmosphere.

Sodium lamps take time to warm up and reach full brightness, whereas LED lights turn on and off instantly. The LED lights initially brought to cities like L.A. had a color temperature of around 4,000K, leading to complaints from locals who said they were too clinical and reminded them of a hospital or prison. In L.A. and other cities, officials have warmed the LED lights to more like 3,000K.

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