Foreword to the Special Issue on Advances in Remote Sensing of Nighttime Lights: Progresses, Challenges, and Perspectives

Payne Institute Earth Observation Group Director Dr. Christopher Elvidge, Bailang Yu, Yuyu Zhou, Christopher Small, and Zuoqi Chen are editors for the special issue that focus’ on the technology of nighttime sensor lighting. Nighttime light (NTL) data provides unique observations of our Earth and receives increasing attentions from a variety of fields such as remote sensing, GIS, and urban planning. Since 1990s, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program— Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) NTL data have been explored to monitor human activities. Recently, new NTL satellites such as NPP-VIIRS, International Space Station (ISS), EROS-B, Jilin 1-3B, and Luojia 1-01, with better spatial and temporal resolutions, and even multispectral information, have been launched. December 3, 2020.