55 million people ran out of electricity in Spain and Portugal on April 28, but Total darkness images They circulated the next day, like the one above, they were false. The Balearic Islands did not suffer the blackout, and a good part of the Peninsula already had light when the night fell. Now the European Space Agency has compiled the real images captured from space.
The trigger for this collection work were, in fact, the false images. Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel, researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia linked to ESA light pollution projects, He saw the photos that were circulating And he decided that the real ones had to be published.
Three NASA satellites equipped with Night observation technology (Suomi-NPP, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21) spent a couple of times on the peninsula that night. Their Six images They tell us a nuanced story, and very different from viral montages, how the Peninsula finished illuminating.


The blackout at 03:12, 03:36, 04:30, 04:54 and 05:18
While areas like Madrid had regained light around 22:00 on the 28th, other regions, especially in the souththey followed in the dark until Well enter the morning On the 29th, the almost complete recovery, visible in the last passes of the satellites, arrived at 5:00.
The night was clear in almost the entire territory. Dark spots in France or the Portuguese coast are not due to supply cuts, but that the satellite did not go through that concrete region in the waterfall.


In green, the areas that still had no light. Blank, the ones
In these contrasted images, areas without light can be visualized more easily in green, while areas with electricity supply appear blank. The provinces of Almería and Granada They were the ones that took the closest to illuminate. There are also green areas in Castilla-La Mancha and dispersed regions of Levante, the Sierra Morena and the Campo de Gibraltar.


The blackout in Andalusia seen by NASA Earth Observatory
While satellites help quickly evaluate the scope and progression of light cuts, the blackouts itself offer space agencies the possibility of Study light pollution and its impact on the observation of heaven or In circadian rhythms of people.
In areas such as Almería, the light pollution It was reduced between 70 and 80% during the blackout of April 28. But the light was restored, the stars turned off again and Pilas radio He went back to the drawer.
Images | NASA, that
In Xataka | ESA has launched the world’s first satellite equipped with Band Radar P. The goal: see through forests
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings