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Full catalog/VNP02DNB
VNP02DNB·v2·dataset

Nighttime lights, raw image bands (VIIRS, Suomi-NPP)

VIIRS/NPP Day/Night Band 6-Min L1B Swath 750 m
land NASA LAADS Level 1B active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. How much light the satellite's special low-light sensor recorded, sensitive enough to span everything from a quarter moon to full daylight. It covers visible and near-infrared light at 750-meter resolution.

How it's made. Calibrated readings from the VIIRS Day/Night Band on Suomi-NPP, processed from raw signal into measured radiance over six-minute stretches of orbit.

How & where you'd use it. The raw light measurement behind night-lights products used to map city lights, fires, and moonlit scenes. It is mainly an input that feeds finished nighttime-lights maps.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS › VISIBLE RADIANCESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › INFRARED WAVELENGTHS › INFRARED RADIANCE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2012-01-19 → ongoing
  • Measured bySuomi-NPP (VIIRS)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

The VIIRS/NPP Day/Night Band 6-Min L1B Swath 750 m product, short-name VNP02DNB, is a panchromatic Day-Night band (DNB) calibrated radiance product. The DNB is one of the M-bands with an at-nadir spatial resolution of 750 meters (across the entire scan). The panchromatic DNB’s spectral wavelength ranges from 0.5 µm to 0.9 µm. It facilitates measuring night lights, reflected solar/lunar lights with a large dynamic range between a low of a quarter moon illumination to the brightest daylight. More information is available at [product page](https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/missions-and-measurements/products/VNP02DNB/)

Get the data

vnp02dnb_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VNP02DNB",
    version="2",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LAADS
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.