Embrace Darkness

Lighten up?

NASA satellite photo.

Ever see this picture showing how much light our country produces at night? It's amazing and it shows how increasingly difficult it is to see the stars in all their glory. Last month National Geographic featured a cover story about light pollution--how our artificial light impacts nature.

Here is some information excerpted and condensed from that article:

• Nighttime lighting upsets circadian rhythms (the oscillation of waking and sleeping essential to our biological welfare) causing effects just now being discovered. One study suggests a correlation between breast cancer and nighttime brightness.
• Two-thirds of humanity lives under skies polluted with light. One-fifth can no longer see the Milky Way.
• In the Eastern half of the U.S., one would be hard-pressed to find any dark sky area, meaning a place where you can avoid night glow.
• Many cities, such as Flagstaff, Arizona, and countries, such as the Czech Republic, have committed to reducing unwanted glare.
• Where to go for the best dark sky area anywhere? The Central African Republic.

The video below will give you a quick visual overview of the issue. Towards the end off the video you'll see what we're missing.

(Quick Vue hint: Advance the cursor slightly more than halfway to begin with a fascinating satellite view of the world at night.)

Click on second icon from lower right to enlarge to full screen.