The International Space Station captured a mosaic of city lights stretching from the U.S. Midwest to the Atlantic coast on the night of Oct. 18, 2026, a couple of hours before sunrise. Major metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Detroit and the New York region are visible in the photograph, their lights spread across the continental landscape.

The image was taken with the International Space Station orbiting 259 miles (about 417 kilometers) above Earth's surface, a typical altitude for its low orbit. From that vantage point, the platform can record in detail the distribution of artificial lighting along densely populated urban corridors, in this case the axis running from the Great Lakes to the northeastern megalopolis.

Nighttime photographs of Earth from the ISS are a routine tool for studying urban sprawl, energy consumption and light pollution. In this image, the concentration of light in Chicago, Detroit and the New York area illustrates the continuity of the urban network linking the country's interior with the East Coast.