National project · Space
Lost at Night (first version)
Help map night-time photos of cities taken from the International Space Station
About the project
Lost at Night is a citizen science web app for locating night-time photographs of cities taken by astronauts from the International Space Station. It is part of the Cities at Night project, coordinated by researcher Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel.
NASA’s archive holds more than 3 million images, but only a small share of them have been located. For the rest, we know where the Station was when the photo was taken, but not where the camera was pointing, so the typical error is around 500 km.
To locate a photo, the app shows it next to several images of cities that have already been identified, and the participant chooses the one that matches. If none match, they can select ‘None of these’. No previous experience is needed.
The app was launched in early 2020 thanks to the Stars4all crowdfunding campaign, the support of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) – Spanish Ministry of Science and the involvement of Fundación Ibercivis.
Since 2024, Lost at Night has continued on a new platform, developed by Ibercivis as part of the European project PLAN-B: see the current Lost at Night page.
Project objectives
Lost at Night aims to organise and georeference the archive of night-time images from the Space Station so that it can be used in research.
- Identify sources of light pollution, at a much higher resolution than other satellites.
- Study how cities develop and cultural differences through artificial light at night.
- Provide data for health studies, such as those linking the colour of light to breast and prostate cancer.
- Support biodiversity studies, such as those on the dark corridors used by bats.
The first located images are already being used in research. In 2019, a Cities at Night paper entered the global top 100 of the Altmetric index.
The role of Ibercivis
Ibercivis helped launch the Lost at Night app, together with Stars4all and FECYT, and supports the project’s outreach and educational materials.
Our activities
- Design and layout of the Cities at Night teaching unit (in Spanish) for students in the 3rd and 4th years of ESO (ages 14 to 16), on light pollution and how to take part in the project. It is open access (CC BY-SA 4.0 licence) and also has a printable version.
- Sharing the project’s infographics on light pollution.
- Media outreach, such as the article in Tercer Milenio (Heraldo de Aragón) in March 2020.
Gallery
Project details
Type of project
National
Duration
2020 – 2024
Area
Space