An astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed the U.S. Midwest before dawn on October 18, 2026, capturing a broad view of cities and highways illuminated against the dark landscape. The image was taken at 4:54 a.m. Central Daylight Time, with skies clear over much of the eastern United States.
Chicago and Detroit appear among the brightest features. The lights of Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Louisville are also visible, along with the routes linking cities across state and interstate highways.
A diffuse green and orange band along the horizon is airglow, produced when sunlight interacts with atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere. Sunlight also curves into view on the opposite side of the horizon. Sunrise was about an hour away on the East Coast and about two hours away in Chicago.
Nighttime images from astronauts and remote-sensing instruments help researchers monitor changes in the built environment. While Chicago appears mostly pale yellow in the wide-angle photograph, more detailed images can reveal different colors associated with different types of lighting. Researchers have used NASA’s archive of astronaut photographs to develop a method for identifying lighting types in nighttime image pixels.
NASA’s Black Marble satellite product suite also records nighttime lights around the world at daily, monthly and yearly intervals. In the eastern United States, researchers have used these observations to study power outages and restoration after major storms, lighting changes linked to new infrastructure, and the shift from older lighting to LEDs.
The wide-angle photograph was taken with a Nikon Z9 camera using a 14-millimeter focal length by a member of the Expedition 75 crew. NASA says the image was cropped and enhanced for contrast, with lens artifacts removed.
Sources: NASA Breaking News.