Shining, shimmering, splendid✨ This image of Earth at night provides a clear view of the patterns of human settlements across our planet. Satellite images of Earth at night – often referred to as “night lights” – provide a broad beautiful picture showing how humans shaped the planet and lit up the darkness. The image shows Earth’s night lights as observed in 2016; it is drawn from a compositing technique that selected the best cloud-free nights in each month over each land mass in 2016. (Note that clouds and sunlight are added for aesthetic effect.) “Using this data, we can monitor short-term changes caused by disturbances in power delivery, such as conflict, storms, earthquakes, and brownouts. We can monitor cyclical changes driven by reoccurring human activities such as holiday lighting and seasonal migrations. We can also monitor gradual changes driven by urbanization, out-migration, economic changes, and electrification. The fact that we can track all these different aspects at...