Renowned for its countless casinos, hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues, not to mention its neon-lit Strip – the long street on which most of the above stand – Las Vegas attracts over 40 million visitors a year, and is known as the entertainment capital of the world to some, and Sin City to others!
It’s also – thanks to all that neon – often claimed to be the brightest city on Earth, as seen from space.
But is it really?
More Earth from space
Well, it’s certainly brightly lit at night. Indeed, it’s become a popular target for photography by astronauts onboard the International Space Station.
This picture was taken by one of the Expedition 26 crew on 30 November 2010.
Why is Las Vegas so bright?
"Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire," sang Elvis Presley about Las Vegas.
One reason Las Vegas is so bright is that the city has grown hugely over the past 125 years.
In 1900, the area had a population of less than 25. Yes, 25 people.
As of 2025, there are over 640,000 people living in the City of Las Vegas itself, and over 2.25 million living in the greater metropolitan area.
A natural spring in the middle of the Mojave Desert was always going to attract visitors, and the Las Vegas area was once the summer home of the Southern Paiute, a Native American tribe who live in the Colorado River Basin.
It was also once home to a Mormon fort, but it was only once the railroad arrived, along with the first hotel and casino, in 1905 that the population began to expand.
Once a casino boom got underway in the 1930s there was no stopping the city, and it carried on expanding throughout the 20th century.
A growing city from space
The two images above of Las Vegas from space, taken by NASA’s LANDSAT satellite in 1984 and 2009, show just how much the city grew over the course of just 25 years.
However, population growth has since slowed, and the city is no longer expanding at the rate it was during the last century.
If you compare the 2009 LANDSAT image above with the image below, which was taken by ESA’s Sentinel-2 satellite in 2021, you’ll notice not a lot has changed over the past decade or so, compared to the rapid expansion seen in the 25 years before that.
Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam
The main reason for that slow-down in population expansion and physical growth is simple: geography.
Put simply, deserts are hot, dry places, and not really the most suitable places to stick over two million people!
Keeping the city supplied with enough water is, as a result, a constant headache for local and national authorities, and NASA plays its part by using its satellites to monitor water levels in Lake Mead.
Created by the building of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, Lake Mead is the huge reservoir that supplies water not just to Las Vegas but to the whole state of Nevada, as well as parts of California, Arizona and Mexico.
NASA technology is also used to monitor temperatures in the region.
The ECOSTRESS instrument onboard the ISS rather cleverly measures ground temperatures from space, and this image shows the city on 10 June 2022, when Las Vegas hit a record temperature of 43°C (109°F).
Brightest city on Earth?
So Las Vegas is a big, sprawling neon-lit city in the middle of a hot, dry and non-illuminated desert.
Las Vegas stands out in photos from space, but is it, as is often claimed, 'the brightest city on Earth'?
'Probably not', is the answer to that, although you can see why, with its world-famous illuminations, you'd be forgiven for coming to that conclusion.
Whether or not Las Vegas is the brightest city on Earth is actually not that straightforward a question to answer.
To do so categorically, you’d need to compare night-time satellite images of every human settlement on Earth, all taken at the same time.
What’s more, you’d need to do so multiple times over the year.
Illumination levels fluctuate over time, as NASA saw by observing Christmas lights from space.
And the fact is, we just don’t have that amount of data to draw on.
However, it’s worth pointing out that when UK optical firm Feel Good Contacts commissioned research into the world’s brightest cities, Las Vegas didn’t make the top 10.
Nor did it when the Center for Biological Research investigated the same question.
So it’s probably (but only probably!) safe to say that Las Vegas ISN’T the brightest city on Earth.
But what about the various individual Las Vegas landmarks that have claimed to be visible from space – are those claims true?
This is a claim that’s been made at various times about the Luxor Sky Beam, the Sphere and the Allegiant Stadium.
Luxor Sky Beam
What is it?
A huge light beam, built in 1993 and created using 39 x 7,000W xenon bulbs and an array of curved mirrors, that shoots up into the sky from atop the pyramid-shaped, Egyptian-themed Luxor Hotel.
Is it visible from space?
No. The Luxor Sky Beam CAN be seen from a long way away at low altitudes (for instance, it’s visible to planes landing at LAX airport, some 443km/275mi away), but it only ever reached about 11km/7mi up in the air, and while estimates of where ‘space’ begins do vary, the lowest we’ve ever heard of was 30km.
And besides, that was the original 42.3 million candela beam. Since 2008, the Luxor Sky Beam has been operating on only half-power. So that’s a big, fat no.
The Sphere
What is it?
A dome-shaped entertainment venue whose entire exoskeleton consists of one giant, 16K resolution LED screen on the inside, and a 54,000 m2 (580,000 sq ft) array of LED screens on the outside.
The entire building can be made to look like a giant emoji, Earth or Mars. It opened in 2023 and cost $2.3bn to build.
Is it visible from space?
The idea that the Las Vegas Sphere can be seen from space is another claim that’s often repeated online, but it seems to have originated from within the Sphere’s own press office, and we’ve been unable, in our investigations, to find any evidence to substantiate it.
The likelihood is, however, that Las Vegas would appear to an astronaut on the Space Station as a bright region, and that individual structures like the Las Vegas Sphere would not be distinguishable without using a zoom lens or other optical equipment.
So 'probably not' is the verdict here.
Allegiant Stadium
What is it?
A domed sports stadium that’s home to the Las Vegas Raiders NFL team and the college football team UNLV Rebels. Opened in 2020, it has hosted the Superbowl in 2024 as well as concerts by the likes of Coldplay, AC/DC, Garth Brooks, Elton John, Beyonce, The Rolling Stones and Ed Sheeran.
Is it visible from space?
Weirdly, yes. We say "weirdly" because where other Las Vegas landmarks have claimed to be visible from space but actually aren’t, the Allegiant Stadium’s PR team have never actually said it was… and yet if you peer closely at the picture above – taken by a member of the ISS’s Expedition 67 crew – you can just about make out the stadium as an oval of light just a little to the south and east of the Strip.
So that’s a yes… but only just!
One of three ain’t bad, we guess, but generally speaking, any claim that a specific landmark is 'visible from space' should be taken with a pinch of salt, and Las Vegas is no exception.
It’s still a fun place to visit, though. Viva Las Vegas!
