The physiology and behavior of most life at or near the Earth’s surface has evolved over billions of years to be attuned with our planet’s natural light–dark cycle of day and night. However, over a relatively short time span, humans have disrupted this natural cycle of illumination with the introduction and now widespread proliferation of artificial light at night (ALAN). Growing research in a broad range of fields, such as ecology, the environment, human health, public safety, economy, and society, increasingly shows that ALAN is taking a profound toll on our world. Much of our current understanding of light pollution comes from datasets generated by remote sensing, primarily from two missions, the Operational Linescan System (OLS) instrument of the now-declassified Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) of the U.S. Department of Defense and its follow-on platform, the Day-Night Band (DNB) of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on board the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership satellite. Although they have both proved invaluable for ALAN research, sensing of nighttime lights was not the primary design objective for either the DMSP-OLS or VIIRS-DNB instruments; thus, they have some critical limitations. Being broadband sensors, both the DMSP-OLS and VIIRS-DNB instruments suffer from a lack of spectral information. Additionally, their spatial resolutions are too low for many ALAN research applications, though the VIIRS-DNB instrument is much improved over the DMSP-OLS in this regard, as well as in terms of dynamic range and quantization. Further, the very late local time of VIIRS-DNB observations potentially misses the true picture of ALAN. We reviewed both current literature and guiding advice from ALAN experts, aggregated from a diverse range of disciplines and Science Goals, to derive recommendations for a mission to expand knowledge of ALAN in areas that are not adequately addressed with currently existing orbital missions. We propose a stand-alone mission focused on understanding light pollution and its effects on our planet. Here we review the science cases and the subsequent mission recommendations for NITESat (Nighttime Imaging of Terrestrial Environments Satellite), a dedicated ALAN observing mission.

The NITESat (Night Imaging and Tracking Experiment Satellite) mission is a 2U CubeSat satellite designed for nighttime Earth imaging to quantify and characterize light pollution across the Midwestern United States. It is accompanied and supported by an array of ground-based light pollution observing stations called GONet (Ground Observing Network). NITESat is a pilot mission testing the potential for a simple and inexpensive (<$500,000) satellite to deliver high-resolution, three-color regional data of artificial light at night. In addition, GONet will form the core of an educational outreach program by establishing an array of all-sky monitors covering the imaging region of the satellite with 20+ full sky light pollution citizen-operated stations. This will provide synchronized data coinciding with the NITESat overpasses as well as providing near continuous night sky quality monitoring. If the initial mission is a success, the potential exists to expand the program into a low cost constellation of satellites capable of delivering global coverage. NITESat is being designed, built and will be operated by the Far Horizons program at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. Far Horizons is a student and volunteer centered program offering hands-on engineering and scientific research opportunities for education.

The spatial and angular emission patterns of artificial and natural light emitted, scattered, and reflected from the Earth at night are far more complex than those for scattered and reflected solar radiation during daytime. In this commentary, we use examples to show that there is additional information contained in the angular distribution of emitted light. We argue that this information could be used to improve existing remote sensing retrievals based on night lights, and in some cases could make entirely new remote sensing analyses possible. This work will be challenging, so we hope this article will encourage researchers and funding agencies to pursue further study of how multi-angle views can be analyzed or acquired.Plain Language Summary When satellites take images of Earth, they usually do so from directly above (or as close to it as is reasonably possible). In this comment, we show that for studies that use imagery of Earth at night, it may be beneficial to take several images of the same area at different angles within a short period of time. For example, different types of lights shine in different directions (street lights usually shine down, while video advertisements shine sideways), and tall buildings can block the view of a street from some viewing angles. Additionally, since views from different directions pass through different amounts of air, imagery at multiple angles could be used to obtain information about Earth's atmosphere, and measure artificial and natural night sky brightness. The main point of the paper is to encourage researchers, funding agencies, and KYBA ET AL.

The NITELite (Night Imaging of Terrestrial Environments Lite) system is a method of collecting regional-scale light emissions data from a latex high-altitude balloon (LHAB) platform. An LHAB can reach altitudes of 25-30km from where the nighttime imaging is performed. LHAB missions are relatively low cost (<$2000US/flight) and easy to repeat. A NITELite mission collects data with high resolution (<10m/px), color information (RGB) over a region of thousands of square kilometers. This system provides a new source of data for remote sensing of artificial light at night (ALAN) research, filling the data gap between aerial and satellite observations. Nighttime LHAB-based imaging can provide data to support fields of ALAN research such as observation of real-time variability, monitoring effects of seasonal changes and events of interest, and measuring angular dependence of ALAN sources. NITELite includes an imaging system, an inertial and positional recording on-board-computer, and an altitude control system. Preliminary results demonstrate the potential of this method for future ALAN research.

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