Seen the viral NASA Diwali photo again this year? Here's all you need to know about it

On the occasion of Diwali, NASA’s fake Diwali picture has found a way to get viral on social media again. The graphical image shared on social media claims that it is the night view of an illuminated India captured by NASA.

According to NASA, the real image is taken by the US Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) shows the population growth with the help of city lights. The white areas indicate city lights that were visible before 1992, and the blue, green and red ones show those that appeared in 1992, 1998 and 2003 respectively. The picture is actually colour-composite, created by NOAA scientist Chris Elvidge in 2003 to highlight population growth over time.

However, NASA shared a real image of the festival of lights on Twitter.

“On 23 November 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this night-time view of southern Asia,” NASA had said releasing the picture.

Happy #Diwali!

This photo was taken by @NASA's Suomi NPP satellite on Diwali in 2012, capturing an infrared view of South Asia on the evening of the holiday.

Learn more about how this image was taken: https://t.co/TjT4WH2Cxb pic.twitter.com/6SKW91JlxM

— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) November 4, 2021

The picture is captured by NASA’s Suomi NPP Satellite. This image, NASA’s website says, “is based on data collected by the VIIRS “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared".