The Grand Aerial Display in Night Sky is Disappearing
By James Donahue
Some years ago when we lived in a rural Michigan home with a large picture window facing east across a vast open field, I used to marvel at the panorama of stars visible on clear nights. Later when we lived briefly on the high plains of Arizona, the aerial display was so grand my wife and I spent hours studying the sky with a fine set of binoculars. We were rewarded that winter by an eclipse of the moon, a passing comet and a rare alignment of the planets.
Even before we left the western states the smog was moving in. You could see it; a murky pale brown fog hanging low on the horizon. One day when driving into Albuquerque, New Mexico, which rests in a valley between surrounding mountains, we were shocked to clearly notice that as we descended, we were passing through various layers of industrial fog that was visible to us and began smarting our eyes. Once in the city the smog was no longer noticeable, but we knew it was there. The sky was not as bright blue to us as it had been before we arrived.
Star gazing is not a lost art, but those who do it must leave the lights of civilization and move to high ground, above the layers of smog now encompassing much of our planet, to get a good view. They marvel at the same things we easily watched from the yard of our Navajo hosts on the high desert. Some enthusiasts drive for miles to find the right place to view the sky.
Now researchers for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are saying that weather satellite data is showing that artificial night lighting from all over our planet is bouncing off those layers of smog and making it more and more difficult to observe the stars. Light pollution is also affecting sleep patterns and having other ecological effects on people and especially nocturnal animals, the research report states.
Christopher Kyba, of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, in a research paper on this subject published in the journal Science Advances, noted that the increased night-time lighting is obscuring stars that people have witnessed for millennia.
That statement caused me to think about the vast number of interesting archaeological digs, and the studies of ancient stone structures like Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza, that clearly show that these mighty construction projects by the ancients hinged on the movement of the stars. The stars and solar events were so clear to those distant ancestors that their lives were guided by the lights they observed in the night sky.
They knew when to plant, when to harvest, and set dates of celebration for the Winter and Summer Solstice, marking the shortest and longest day of each year. The calendar we still use today somewhat follows those ancient celebrations, marking the start of each new year and the shift from spring to summer. They also marked the shift from winter to spring and from summer to autumn as the two equinoxes. The ancients watched the stars that closely, celebrated those special days, and they told stories based on various patterns that looked to them like great animals and gods moving through the sky.
Imagine how brilliant the stars in the night sky would look to people who had no smog and artificial light to blind their observations. It is small wonder that so many celebrations and observations shared the world over are the result of things seen and the stories told around the ancient camp fires.
By James Donahue
Some years ago when we lived in a rural Michigan home with a large picture window facing east across a vast open field, I used to marvel at the panorama of stars visible on clear nights. Later when we lived briefly on the high plains of Arizona, the aerial display was so grand my wife and I spent hours studying the sky with a fine set of binoculars. We were rewarded that winter by an eclipse of the moon, a passing comet and a rare alignment of the planets.
Even before we left the western states the smog was moving in. You could see it; a murky pale brown fog hanging low on the horizon. One day when driving into Albuquerque, New Mexico, which rests in a valley between surrounding mountains, we were shocked to clearly notice that as we descended, we were passing through various layers of industrial fog that was visible to us and began smarting our eyes. Once in the city the smog was no longer noticeable, but we knew it was there. The sky was not as bright blue to us as it had been before we arrived.
Star gazing is not a lost art, but those who do it must leave the lights of civilization and move to high ground, above the layers of smog now encompassing much of our planet, to get a good view. They marvel at the same things we easily watched from the yard of our Navajo hosts on the high desert. Some enthusiasts drive for miles to find the right place to view the sky.
Now researchers for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are saying that weather satellite data is showing that artificial night lighting from all over our planet is bouncing off those layers of smog and making it more and more difficult to observe the stars. Light pollution is also affecting sleep patterns and having other ecological effects on people and especially nocturnal animals, the research report states.
Christopher Kyba, of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, in a research paper on this subject published in the journal Science Advances, noted that the increased night-time lighting is obscuring stars that people have witnessed for millennia.
That statement caused me to think about the vast number of interesting archaeological digs, and the studies of ancient stone structures like Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza, that clearly show that these mighty construction projects by the ancients hinged on the movement of the stars. The stars and solar events were so clear to those distant ancestors that their lives were guided by the lights they observed in the night sky.
They knew when to plant, when to harvest, and set dates of celebration for the Winter and Summer Solstice, marking the shortest and longest day of each year. The calendar we still use today somewhat follows those ancient celebrations, marking the start of each new year and the shift from spring to summer. They also marked the shift from winter to spring and from summer to autumn as the two equinoxes. The ancients watched the stars that closely, celebrated those special days, and they told stories based on various patterns that looked to them like great animals and gods moving through the sky.
Imagine how brilliant the stars in the night sky would look to people who had no smog and artificial light to blind their observations. It is small wonder that so many celebrations and observations shared the world over are the result of things seen and the stories told around the ancient camp fires.