It is a sad but unavoidable fact that most humans in the developed world have never seen the Milky Way in all of its glory. Admittedly, we don't get to see it quite as strikingly in theNorthern hemisphere as they do in the South but, nevertheless, light pollution means we see almost none of it. And that makes me sad.
For almost the entireity of human history we've been able to look up at a cloudless night sky and wonder at the vastness of it all and the millions of stars. Now we just see the brightest points of light. And most of those are planets.
While most light pollution comes from the ground I was surprised to read on the Space.Com website that satellites are causing it too. As it says: 'More recently, the explosive growth in satellite communication "constellations," like SpaceX's Starlink system, has put orders of magnitude more satellites into orbit than even a decade ago, with even more on the way. Those satellites don't just spoil deep-space astronomical observations when they cross a telescope's field of view; they also scatter and reflect sunlight from their solar arrays. The abundance of satellites is causing the overall brightness of the sky to increase all around the globe. Some researchers have estimated that, on average, our darkest night skies, located in the most remote regions of the world, are 10% brighter than they were a half century ago, and the problem is only getting worse.'
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
I have been in dark sky areas - particularly in places like the Outer Hebrides - where the beauty of a clear night sky takes your breath away.
What a tragedy it will be if future generations never get to experience it.
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