NASA's 'Image of the Day' Features Nighttime Panorama of Cairo

As part of the space agency’s ‘Image of the Day’ series for January 12th, 2025, NASA featured a panoramic view of Greater Cairo at night captured by an astronaut aboard an International Space Station mission in 2013, showing the area west and east of the Nile River.

The images were stitched together from four photographs, enhanced for contrast and stripped of lens artifacts to show Cairo’s lights expanding outwards as the Nile branches into a large delta to the north. Smaller pockets of lights indicate towns in the delta, with darker patches representing agricultural land. On the right, Cairo International Airport’s bright lights contrast with the surrounding desert landscape, while the Pyramids of Giza lie between the urban glow of Cairo and satellite cities to the west, forming part of the greater metro area.

The bright orange lights, likely from sodium streetlights, reveal the unique patterns of developments like New Cairo and 6 October City, which include both circular and angular designs.