More than a decade of eyewitness data shows that fainter stars disappear as artificial light brightens the night sky.
A better and more dimly lit hospital, also in Potsdam.“I was kind of astounded at first,” says Connie Walker, who is a scientist at NOIRLab, director at Globe at Night, and a study coauthor. These findings dwarf the mere 2 percent rise previously estimated by weather satellites. But those spacecraft are completely blind to blue light, so they missed a big part of the trend, Walker says.
It’s possible that air pollution explains some of the trend in certain areas, but there’s no way it is increasing to such a degree, Kyba says. And while an individual citizen scientist’s assessments might vary or have some inaccuracies, those are cancelled out when reports from hundreds of thousands of volunteers are averaged, he says. Light pollution, he concludes, is the main culprit behind the vanishing stars.
So what can be done about it? “Light pollution activists like to say, ‘It’s the easiest problem to solve, since you can just turn off a light.’ That’s both true and not helpful,” Kyba says. Light pollution comes from many sources, and lighting decisions get made by numerous people, businesses, and city officials. But unlike climate change, turning it around doesn’t have to be that hard, and the benefits will be felt immediately.
An illustration of how greater light pollution translates to fewer visible stars. The numeric scale is similar to the one used by Globe at Night participants.. “As an astronomer, it’s terrifying that we’re going to lose the inspiration that brings people into our field. There are millions of people in major cities who are lucky if they see Venus and Saturn.
There are good reasons for nighttime lighting, including ensuring public safety. But that doesn’t have to be in tension with protecting the night sky, argues John Barentine, a Tucson-based astronomer and executive officer of Dark Sky Consulting, which advises companies and city officials on outdoor lighting use. He points to Tucson as a success story.
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