Africa at Night: A View from Space

Nov 06, 2025 0

A skyward glance on an African night is a look into the center of the Milky Way. Africa, as a continent, is not known for its space exploration. However, the darkness across Africa is something that gives people better access to the night sky.

Africa at night from space

Astronomy and Space Exploration in Africa

Countries like Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Mauritius all have astronomy projects, and some are launching satellites into space. Govender said this is just the beginning. Many were skeptical it could benefit Africa with its limited infrastructure. Govender pointed to the Internet, one of the biggest technological changes in the last several decades, which was developed through what he terms 'blue sky sciences' - involving space research.

A decade from now, South Africa - along with Australia - will be providing the fastest, clearest and largest view of space that humans have ever had through the Square Kilometer Array - a radio telescope with a collecting area of one square kilometer.

According to Govender:

"There are no existing systems that can handle that quantity of data. Yet we are in a global economy, in a world that basically lives off data."

The Philosophical Significance of the Night Sky

Engaging with the night sky is a very deep experience, and very important philosophically. It makes you wonder: What does the moon see? When we think about where we are in the universe, and what the earth looks like. From that view, there's no country borders, there's no skin color, there's no language differences. It's basically a little blue planet that has life on it.

How Does Starlink Cause Light Pollution For Astronomy? - Space Tech Insider

Light Pollution in Africa

Electric light is an essential everyday convenience-and for good reason. Light allows us to see in the dark. It lights our paths at night, keeping us safe. Internal lighting also makes our homes more, well, homely. Various studies have used nighttime lights to measure urbanisation, economic growth, and prediction of GDP. Implied in these studies is that the earth’s brightness should increase with development. Increased brightness doesn’t have to accompany Africa’s development.

Light pollution is any adverse effect/ impact caused by artificial light at night. Mainly experienced in developed urban areas, light pollution is caused by street lights, lighted sports fields, billboards, building lighting, etc.

Read also: Amazing Facts About Africa

Types of Light Pollution:

Skyglow: A brightening of the night sky caused by lighting from an artificial source
Glare: Excessive brightness beyond that required.
Clutter: Refers to bright, confusing, and excessive groupings of light sources

Light pollution map

Effects of Light Pollution

In humans, as with all living organisms, the 24-hour day/ night cycle-known as the circadian clock-affects biological activities such as brain wave patterns and hormone production. Light pollution affects plants and animals too. For example, exposure to artificial light may prevent some trees from adjusting to seasonal variations-and by extension the animals that depend on these trees. Furthermore, light pollution alters the behaviour of wildlife species and their life cycles.

A 2016 study found that due to light pollution, the milky way isn’t visible to over one-third of humanity-which includes 60% of Europeans and nearly 80% of North Americans. Light pollution presents a problem for the average person but even more for stargazers and astronomers. Stargazing entails looking at the stars and other celestial objects. With light pollution on the rise, urban skies are no longer very clear. Therefore, if you’re a keen stargazer/ astronomer, you might travel, looking for unpolluted night skies-which are plenty in Africa.

Africa's Dark Skies: A Stargazer's Paradise

Africa’s dark nights offer breathtaking celestial sights. We find the top three countries least affected by light pollution in Africa. For Chad, the Central African Republic and Madagascar, over three-quarters of their population lives under pristine night sky conditions. Currently, the continent boasts some of the finest astrotourism destinations.

For developed countries, reduction in light pollution may involve redoing the lighting in entire cities. It means active adoption of more efficient night lighting strategies. It means lighting that’s designed to reduce unnecessary illumination. What are your thoughts about nighttime lights? based International Dark-Sky Association (IDA).

Read also: Discover Thula Thula

Country	Percentage of Population Under Pristine Night Sky Conditions
Chad	Over 75%
Central African Republic	Over 75%
Madagascar	Over 75%

Images of Africa from Space

There’s more to images of Africa than giraffes and sunsets. It’s the second-largest continent on earth. Here are some images of Africa taken from space:

Etosha salt pan, Namibia: The Etosha salt pan on the Ekuma River in the Kalahari Basin region of northern Namibia is a 120-kilometre (75-mile) dry lakebed in Etosha National Park. About 16,000 years ago, as the last ice age ended and ice sheets were melting across the northern hemisphere, a wetter climate in southern Africa filled Etosha Lake. Today the Kalahari is an arid desert and Etosha pan rarely covered with even a thin sheet of water.
Estuaries of Madagascar: Estuaries - where the waters of seas and rivers mix - on the northwestern coast of Madagascar, a large African island in the Indian Ocean. The Mozambique Channel (top) separates Madagascar from the southeastern coast of Africa. The Betsiboka River, which flows into Bombetoka Bay (upper left), leaves striking red floodplain sediments. Mahajamba Bay (right) is fed by several rivers including the Mahajamba and Sofia. Like the Betsiboka, the floodplains of these rivers contain reddish sediments eroded from their basins upstream.
Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania: Glaciers and snow top Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. A dormant volcano with three cones, Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa. From the base to the top of the mountain is about about 4,900 metres (16,100 feet). The peak lies at 5,895 metres (19,341 feet) above sea level.
Northern Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea: A night view of northern Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean Sea captured by the International Space Station in September 2016. The lights of the city of Cairo and settlements southwards along the Nile River can be clearly seen.
Al-Jawf Oasis, Libya: The Al-Jawf Oasis in eastern Libya photographed by the crew of the International Space Station in February 2017. The large circles in the desert sand are crops cultivated under center-pivot irrigation systems.
Ceuta, Spain in Africa: Ceuta is a Spanish city of some 85,000 people built on a narrow strip of Africa stretching into the western Mediterranean Sea. It lies on the southern coast of the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean. This enclave of Spain in Morocco is 14 kilometres by sea from the Spanish mainland. About half the city’s population is Moroccan. Ceuta and Melilla are Spain’s two territories on the African mainland. Ceuta has a long history as a strategic trade and military point, going back to its origins in the fifth century BCE as the Carthaginian city Abyla.
Red Sea coast of Eritrea: Islands and coral reefs on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea, a small country in eastern North Africa, in an image taken by a crewmember aboard the International Space Station during Expedition 13, in April 2006.
Freetown, Sierra Leone: Freetown, an important West African port city and the capital of Sierra Leone, captured by Sentinel 2A satellite on 28 March 2016. Its harbour, the centre of the city’s economy, lies in the estuary of the Sierra Leone River and is one of the largest natural deep-water harbours in the world. The city of Freetown was founded in 1792 by freed African-American slaves.
Guinea-Bissau: A false-colour composite satellite image of the rivers, coast and islands of Guinea-Bissau. Infrared, red and blue light wavelengths bring out details of the complex patterns of the country’s shallow coastal waters, where silt carried by the Geba and other rivers washes out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Congo Capitals: A view of the twin Congo capitals, facing each other across the Congo River. In this 2003 photo taken from the International Space Station, the smaller city of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, is at upper left. The much larger grey area at lower left is Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The cities lie at the point where the Congo River becomes navigable upstream, widening to the east into Pool Malebo.
Dakar, Senegal: Dakar, Senegal‘s capital city. This arrow-shaped peninsula is the westernmost point of the African continent.
Khartoum, Sudan: The White Nile and Blue Nile rivers meet in the city of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Here they form the great Nile River, which then flows north through Egypt to Cairo and empties into the Mediterranean Sea. In this image taken in the 2005 dry season, the still-flowing White Nile is at left, and the nearly dry Blue Nile curves at right. The source of the White Nile, near the equator in Uganda, produces a nearly constant flow throughout the year. The Blue Nile, by contrast, rises from the highlands of Ethiopia where it is fed by the rainfall of summer monsoons, producing floods in autumn but drying out in the spring. The scars of rainy season floodplains can be clearly seen on the banks of both rivers.
Simien Mountains, Ethiopia: Created by rapidly erupting lava 31-million years ago, the Simien Mountains in northern Ethiopia, near Gondar in the Amhara region, look like a map of Middle Earth. The mountains are highest part of the Ethiopian Highlands, and surrounded by a steep, ragged escarpment with dramatic vertical cliffs, pinnacles, and rock spires - scenery that draws international tourists. Their basalt volcanic rock is more than three kilometres thick. The world’s only other mountains formed in this way, by massive floods of lava, are South Africa’s Drakensberg range. Ethiopia’s Simien National Park has been awarded Unesco World Heritage status for its “outstanding universal value” to humanity, which rivals that of Colorado’s Grand Canyon.
Okavango Delta, Botswana: Sunglint illuminates the great Okavango delta in the Kalahari Desert region of Botswana, in a photo taken from the International Space Station in June 2014. The bright line of the Okavango River shows the annual summer flood advancing from the well-watered Angolan Highlands (upper margin) to the delta. These floodwaters slowly seep across the 150 kilometres of the delta, feeding forests and wetlands until they reach its lower margin in the middle of winter. Most of the river’s water is used up by the forests, or evaporates in the dry air. Only two percent of the water finally exits the delta. Okavango delta wetland supports high biodiversity in the middle of the otherwise semiarid Kalahari Desert, and is now one of the most famous tourist sites in Africa.
Brukkaros Mountain, Namibia: Brukkaros Mountain, a four-kilometre-wide extinct volcano rising out of the desert in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia. Unlike most volcanoes, Brukkaros was formed by a single event. Eighty million year ago a rising plug of superheated magma met groundwater, causing a massive explosion and creating the mountainous crater.
Namibia and South Africa at night: An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this nighttime photo of Namibia and South Africa. Taken at a highly oblique angle with a short focal length lens, the photo reflects the sweeping vistas seen by the station’s crew orbiting above Earth. Moonlight illuminates the tops of offshore clouds in the foreground. The cloud-free zone along the coast results from the persistent upwelling of deep, cold Atlantic water related to the Benguela Current. This image shows how the zone of colder water suppresses cloud formation and therefore rainfall. The long-term effect is a very dry climate along the coast, which in turn has led to the accumulation of the Namib Desert with its “sand sea” and famous dune fields, which are often photographed by astronauts. Population density in southern Africa mirrors the region’s rainfall distribution, with small and sparsely populated communities along the hyper-arid coast and major groups of cities inland where rainfall is plentiful. Many clusters of lights in this view are related to towns whose economies are based on mining. In the foreground, Oranjemund and neighboring towns lie at the point where the Orange River enters the Atlantic Ocean. These towns, along with the small coastal town of Lüderitz, are renowned diamond mining centers. The twin towns of Springbok and Okiep, farther south, are centers of copper mining. The large cluster of lights near the horizon comes from cities in the wetter inland part of South Africa. The largest grouping is the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging conglomeration of cities, where more than 8 million people live. The origin of this major industrial region was the rich gold fields of the Witwatersrand. Rustenburg, the city farthest north in the cluster of lights, is centered on South Africa’s rich platinum mines. The city of Gaborone is Botswana’s capital and a major center for diamond mining corporations.