The predawn hours brought clear skies over much of the eastern United States on October 18, 2026. An astronaut aboard the International Space Station seized the opportunity to capture this wide-angle photo at 4:54 a.m. Central Daylight Time (09:54 Universal Time), with illuminated cities large and small arrayed across the darkened landscape.

The U.S. Midwest’s largest metropolitan areas, such as Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan, stand out as some of the brightest features. Mid-sized cities—including Indianapolis, Indiana; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Louisville, Kentucky—and their interconnections along state and interstate highways also shine brightly.

Above the web of nighttime lights and Earth’s lower atmosphere, a diffuse layer of green and orange is visible along the horizon to the left. This band of light is airglow, produced when sunlight strikes atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere and causes them to eject photons.…