An astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured this photograph of nighttime lights in Southeast Asia, including parts of Singapore and Malaysia. Shipping ports line the coastlines, and boats dot the Singapore Strait.
The Johore Strait separates Singapore (south) from Peninsular Malaysia (north). The urban area of Singapore encompasses the country’s main island, Singapore Island, in addition to numerous smaller islands scattered throughout the Johore and Singapore straits. Two illuminated bridges, the Johor Causeway in the central region and the Second Link toward the west, connect the two countries. The Strait of Malacca on the top-left side of the image appears dark, lacking much light from boats or land, whereas the right side is lined with small villages of mainland Malaysia.
The nighttime lights of developed areas glow with white and yellow tones. The capital city of Singapore displays the brightest and highest-density cluster of lights. Across the strait, the city center of Johor Bahru is similarly illuminated. Urban lights shift to a more orange hue away from the center. These color variations are often related to the use of light-emitting diode (LED) or sodium lightbulbs. LEDs are whiter in hue and more commonly used in industrial, transportation, and dense city areas. Sodium bulbs are yellow-orange and often used in regions with a lower population density.
An elongated dark shape is visible near the center of Singapore Island, indicating the dense vegetation of parks and nature reserves and water within reservoirs. This area provides a habitat for regional plants and animals, a natural refuge from city life for urban residents, and holds rainwater for human consumption.
A brightly lit shipping port complex stands out against the dark waters west of the capital. The Singapore Changi Airport appears as a brightly lit rectangle on the island’s eastern side. The airport sits across the strait from one of the southernmost points of the Malaysian Peninsula, aglow with warmer, yellow-hued lights associated with port complexes.
Astronaut photograph ISS070-E-80842 was acquired on January 26, 2024, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 116 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 70 crew. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab 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 Sara Schmidt, GeoControl Systems, JETS II Contract at NASA-JSC, and Randall Walker, University of Texas at El Paso, JETS II Contract at NASA-JSC.
