EO·Atlas
NASA Black Marble VNP46 Nighttime Lights
NASA Black Marble is a suite of nighttime lights products derived from the VIIRS Day/Night Band (DNB) aboard Suomi-NPP (from 2012) and NOAA-20 (from 2018). The suite comprises four product granules: VNP46A1 (daily at-sensor top-of-atmosphere radiance), VNP46A2 (daily gap-filled surface radiance), VNP46A3 (monthly composites), and VNP46A4 (annual composites).[1][2] Products are delivered on a 500 m (15 arc-second) HDF-EOS5 tile grid.[3] The underlying DNB pixel geometry is 750 m; the VIIRS Land Team documents cite 500 m in reference to the tile grid while NASA Earthdata project pages reference the 750 m DNB pixel.[1][4] Black Marble applies atmospheric correction, bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) normalisation, and cloud masking to isolate surface-emitted light from lunar illumination and atmospheric contributions.[2] Products are distributed open-access via NASA LAADS DAAC. A NOAA-21 (VJ246) product was listed as in development as of mid-2026.[4]
Free access
Supply chain position
- [1]NASA Black Marble Product Suite - VIIRS Land Teamagency doc2026-06-11
- [2]Roman et al. 2018 - NASAs Black Marble nighttime lights product suite (Remote Sensing of Environment)peer reviewed2026-06-11
- [3]VNP46A1 Daily Day Night Band 500m (Collection 2) DOIagency doc2026-06-11
- [4]Black Marble - NASA Earthdataagency doc2026-06-11
- [5]LAADS DAAC Nighttime Lights / Black Marble product pageagency doc2026-06-11
How to cite this page
Plain text
NASA Black Marble VNP46 Nighttime Lights. EO-Atlas, SpectraWorks B.V. https://eo-atlas.org/data_products/nasa-black-marble-vnp46 (CC BY 4.0)
BibTeX
@misc{eoatlas:data_products:nasa-black-marble-vnp46,
title = {NASA Black Marble VNP46 Nighttime Lights},
author = {{EO-Atlas}},
publisher = {SpectraWorks B.V.},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
url = {https://eo-atlas.org/data_products/nasa-black-marble-vnp46}
}