NASA wants you to identify night-time earth images

NASA has an amazing collection of thousands of night photos of the earth and now the US space agency has asked for the public inputs in categorising them and creating an open atlas.

Taken mostly by the International Space Station (ISS), the photos are available in an online collection.

NASA has some 1.8 million night-time images of the earth, including 1.3 million from the ISS.

Called the Image Detective Programme, people are asked to identify particular towns and landmarks shining in the night.

Hundreds of volunteers have already classified nearly 20,000 images, but these need to be confirmed by multiple people, media reports said.

According to NASA, this could help save energy, contribute to better human health and safety, and improve understanding of atmospheric chemistry.