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At a Glance NASA scientists compared daily light intensity over major cities and suburbs.

The lights are brighter from the day after Thanksgiving through New Year's Day.

Light intensity increased up to 50% in the suburbs and outskirts of some major cities.

If Santa doesn't know this yet, someone should tell him. It could make navigating his sleigh much easier.

The scientists at NASA, using data from a satellite, have discovered that nighttime lights around many major United States cities shine 20 to 50% brighter during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays when compared with light output the rest of the year.

The scientists looked at data from the Suomi NPP, a satellite with an instrument called the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite that can distinguish night lights much better than previous satellites, according to a news release from NASA .

Using an advanced algorithm that isolates lights, the scientists can track when and how brightly people light up the nights.

<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/TexasLights.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273" srcset="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/TexasLights.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273 400w, https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/TexasLights.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551 800w" > This image shows the change in lighting intensity in Texas and Louisiana. Green shading marks areas where light usage increased in December. (NASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen, using VIIRS day-night band data provided by Miguel Román)

Miguel Román, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and member of the Suomi NPP Land Discipline Team, said lights started getting brighter in the U.S. on the day after Thanksgiving.

Light intensity increased by 30 to 50% in the suburbs and outskirts of major cities. In the central urban areas, lights brightened by 20 to 30%.

"It’s a near ubiquitous signal," said Román. "Despite being ethnically and religiously diverse, we found that the U.S. experiences a holiday increase across most urban communities. These lighting patterns are tracking a national, shared tradition."

<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/CalifLights.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273" srcset="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/CalifLights.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273 400w, https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/CalifLights.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551 800w" > This image shows the change in lighting intensity in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona and northwestern Mexico. Green shading marks areas where light usage increased in December. (NASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen, using VIIRS day-night band data provided by Miguel Román)

The scientists could only analyze cities that don't get snow because the snow reflects too much light.

The team has also found that in some Middle Eastern cities, nighttime lights shine more than 50% brighter during Ramadan than the rest of the year.

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