Images: City of Dubai, United Arab Emirates at Night As Seen From Orbit
City lights of Dubai, United Arab Emirates are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 30 crew member on the International Space Station. The City of Dubai–the largest metropolitan area within the emirate of Dubai–is a favorite subject of astronaut photography largely due to the unique island developments situated directly offshore in the Persian Gulf. These artificial archipelagos have been built such that their full design is only visible from the vantage point of an airplane — or an orbiting spacecraft such as the International Space Station. The city presents an eye-catching appearance at night that vividly displays the urban development pattern.
City lights of Dubai, United Arab Emirates are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 30 crew member on the International Space Station. The City of Dubai–the largest metropolitan area within the emirate of Dubai–is a favorite subject of astronaut photography largely due to the unique island developments situated directly offshore in the Persian Gulf. These artificial archipelagos have been built such that their full design is only visible from the vantage point of an airplane — or an orbiting spacecraft such as the International Space Station. The city presents an eye-catching appearance at night that vividly displays the urban development pattern.
In this detailed nighttime image–taken with a long focal length lens and digital camera optimized for fast response and high light sensitivity–several interesting patterns can be observed. The highways and major streets are sharply defined by yellow-orange lighting, while the commercial and residential areas are resolved into a speckle pattern of individual white, blue, and yellow-orange lights. Several large and brilliantly lit areas are large hotel and mall complexes, including the Burj Khalifa Tower; at 828 meters (2,717 feet) height it is the world’s tallest building. The brilliant lighting of the city contrasts sharply with both the dark Persian Gulf to the northwest, and largely undeveloped and unlit areas to the southeast. Likewise, the clusters of lighting in the Palm Jumeira complex at bottom right correspond to the relatively small part of the archipelago that has been developed. Isolated areas of blurred city lights are due to patchy clouds. high res (2.9 M) low res (107 K) ISS030-E-099324 (22 Feb. 2012)
The city of Dubai is the largest metropolitan area in the emirate of Dubai, one of the member states of the United Arab Emirates. Dubai is located along the southern Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula, and its signature city is known for high profile architectural and development projects. Among the most notable is the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made peninsula and surrounding islands built from over 50 million cubic meters of sand. Three other island projects, two similar to Palm Jumeirah and another crafted to look like a map of the world, are also underway along the Dubai coastline.
This nighttime astronaut photograph of the city of Dubai was taken at approximately 2 a.m. local time on September 11, 2009. Orange sodium vapor lights trace the major highways and street grid in and around the metropolitan area, while grey-white mercury vapor lamps fill in the commercial and residential areas. The lighted islands and peninsula of Palm Jumeirah are clearly visible along the coastline. A spiral pattern of lights on the southeastern fringe of the urban area is a camel racetrack. Nighttime images like these are useful to climate modelers, urban planners, and geographers as they allow for simple definition of urban (densely lit) and rural (sparely lit) areas.
Astronaut photograph ISS020-E-39932 was acquired on September 11, 2009, with a Nikon D3 digital camera fitted with an 80 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 20 crew. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by William L. Stefanov, NASA-JSC.
Instrument: ISS – Digital Camera. Larger Image
