Out, and up, to a Tokyo apartment building. Dark windows blink into life, as each inhabitant returns for the night. Each illuminated window is home to another set of hopes and dreams. Above them, the skyscrapers blink with a steady red pulse.

To the south, and the spectacle of the Hong Kong skyline, vivid and implausible in equal measure. Buildings forged from the sea and built up and up, proof that humanity can at least attempt to control nature. The lights of the skyline flicker with an unsynchronised glee, pushing their warmth into a cold sky.

Out, and up, into that sky. An aircraft races over the planet, its navigation lights carving a steady, stately path in green and red. From the windows of that aircraft, we look down from high, high above. We look down on thousands of lights which blur in a unified glow: people lighting diyas in doorways; offerings on lakes; bare bulbs in street stalls and warm lamps in homes; artistic light installations; fireworks over rivers and neon-laden skylines. We see the highways and ring roads, with their steady sodium- orange cast. Golden threads connect one nucleus of light to another, a network of humanity and its place on the planet.

We see from the skies that the Earth is large. Our presence is less impressive than you might expect. But in every glimmer and glow, however small or large, there lies a clear message: we are here. We did this. This is a time of light.