Astronauts in low Earth orbit had the opportunity to capture a striking photograph of the nighttime landscape of America's Midwest. Thanks to the nearly complete absence of cloud cover over the region, an unobstructed view opened up of the scatter of city and rural lights spread across the territory of several states. Such photographs are regularly taken by International Space Station crews as part of Earth observation activities. Images of the night side of the planet allow scientists and the general public to assess population density, the extent of transport routes, and the degree of urbanization in various regions. The lights of major cities, connected by chains of illuminated roads, form recognizable geographic patterns visible even from hundreds of kilometers above. Nighttime landscape photography from orbit has both aesthetic and practical value. Such images are used by researchers to study changes in city lighting over time, which can indicate economic development of territories, growth of populated areas, or conversely, instances of power outages resulting from natural disasters or technical failures. Photographs taken by astronauts are traditionally published by space agencies and attract interest from a wide audience due to their unusual perspective and scale unavailable to ground-based observers. The clarity of the image in question is explained precisely by the cloudless weather conditions that prevailed at the moment the station passed over this part of North America.