The world looks stunning in new photographs released by NASA

NASA just released some stunning night-time photographs of the Earth. 'Night lights' as they are called offer a composite view of human settlement patterns across the planet. SEE ALSO: NASA's TRAPPIST-1 discoveries were predicted by a video game These images are the result of data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. According to NASA, VIIRS is the first satellite instrument to make quantitative measurements of light emissions and reflections, which allows researchers to distinguish the intensity, types and the sources of night lights over several years. Scientists reckon that these images can be used "to monitor short-term changes caused by disturbances in power delivery, such as conflict, storms, earthquakes and brownouts."