Photo from the international space station to study the global light LED street light

Images taken by the international space station after the Milan LED street lamp.

In the photo, the center of the city looks brighter than the suburbs, and the detection of the blue light is stronger than before, can also be expected to see the difficulty of raising the stars, greater impact on human health and the environment. Astronauts from the European Space Agency in 2012 after the installation of smart camera vision device, began to take a picture of the earth at night system. In order to match the speed of the space station, and the location of the earth below, this night vision smart camera equipped with electronic tripod. Previously, although the astronauts used high-speed photography, and the use of manual tracking of the shooting, the image is often paste. In 2013, NASA astronaut Donald Petit (Don Pettit) with a simple "barn door tracker (barn door tracker) -" wisdom camera NightPod's predecessor, the electric drill and from the space station to fetch materials assembled successfully from the European Space total book took the first with motion compensation correction of the night. (photo: Samantha Cristoforetti/LEDinside)

Analysis of space photo light damage from street lamps and buildings

Scientists set out to study the photos taken by the astronauts from the European Space Agency (ISS) to measure global light pollution. This study examines the image of many well-known cities and streets, but so far, it is still unable to find out the effective measurement of low light level. The latest results show that the scattered light from space is caused by the light of street lamps and buildings. At the same time, it is also one of the reasons why the cities become more and more bright at night, which makes it more and more difficult for human beings to see stars with the naked eye.

In a new study, Madrid University Compton (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Quebec (C GEP De, Sherbrooke Sherbrooke) scientists with relevant teams to participate in the night in the city "plan, research. The study hopes to produce a color map of the world's cities through the standard digital camera images taken by astronauts at the international space station.

From the beginning of July 2014, the huge plan included a total of 130000 images - all of the international space station's high quality Archive - and on the map using geographic coordinates for comparison. These images are also checked against the sky in the background and the brightness of the night sky.

In the past, the measurement method of light damage must be measured in the original ground, and only a single measurement result can be provided for the light damage map. The new measurement method, the combination of the use of space and ground-based light damage measurement, the first expansion of the scope of light damage measurement.

In the city of light pollution and divergence from the streets and factories to light previously by the defense meteorological satellite program in the United States (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) monitoring, but the cause has not yet been announced; low resolution satellite camera is not enough to provide enough information. But the high - resolution images captured by the astronauts - along with a lot of sky brightness surveys around Madrid - have allowed scientists to observe the direct relationship between light and man-made light.

With the use of the International Space Station photos from the United States, the defense meteorological satellite program and the NPOESS preparatory project (Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Satellite) to obtain information, the researchers found that European countries with high debt city, [3] also in the street of the residential project per unit energy consumption more.

According to research, the EU's overall energy consumption is estimated to reach 6 billion 300 million euros per year (about RMB 44 billion 900 million). Not long ago, to calculate the energy consumption across the streets of Europe can not be reached, the image obtained by space has been able to calculate.

The researchers confirmed that LED street light more harm

The citizen science program is of great help to researchers in many research fields. Lighting technology research from the track is obviously more significant than before, because now many lamps have been replaced by LED technology. Many cities around the world have announced the replacement of LED street lights. LED street lights caused by light - such as the sky in the glow (glare) - are more serious, because LED street lights than the traditional light bulbs emit more blue and green. The international space station is the only one able to estimate the prevalence of different lighting technologies in different cities around the world, but also to measure the impact of light pollution on human health and the environment.

Leading research scientist Alejandro S, nchez de Miguel said: "before we started using the new satellite, the astronauts sent the photos we can see is the only color, high resolution of earth media. "

In the initial stage of the study, the "night city" program has been supported by several institutions, thousands of volunteers to help. The next goal of the program is to continue to raise funds to keep the program running, and continue to expand the color image of the earth in his hands at night.

The research team also concluded that the higher the number of bonds in each country, the higher the energy consumption per unit area of residence. And the EU's annual total energy consumption of street lamps up to 6 billion 300 million euros (about RMB 44 billion 900 million yuan) (Translation: China LED network Zhang Yahan)

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