Light Pollution is Hiding the Milky Way from 80% of N. Americans.

Ninja Bytes: According to recent studies, almost 80% of the North American population are not able to fully see the nightly skies above. This is due to the ‘Light’ pollution.

As we can see from the image above, the laminating glow effect that is being emitted by nightly demands are preventing nearly 80-Percent of the North American population from the ability to fully see the beautifulness of the Milky Way at night.

According to the new Atlas, as bestowed by Science Advances, the artificial sky brightness in which is found to be the home of the Milky Way Galaxy, is now completely hidden from One-Third of the population.

There are still countries in which holds a majority of individuals that are still hold the beauty of living underneath the untouched pitch black nightly sky. Such countries are that of Chad, Madagascar, Africa, and Chad. And more than 99-Percent of individuals that makes up Europe and the United States can look upwards into skies at night, just to see a ‘Light-Polluted’ space.

However, the country in which holds the worst of this ‘Light-Pollution’ is that of Singapore. This is where the researchers has found out “The entire population lives under skies so bright that the eye cannot fully dark-adapt to night vision.”

We can also see that Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and even Kuwait are also living under these same circumstances.

“We’ve lost some of our view into the cosmos,” as stated by Chris Elvidge. Chris is a well known physical scientists located at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Chris is also a member of those who created the new Atlas that had been published by the Science Advances. Chris goes onto saying “There are still people that can remember when they used to be able to see the Milky Way when they would walk outside at night, but those are becoming fewer and fewer.”

The image above is the Milky Way Galaxy. It is clearly visible and was taken at the Dinosaur National Monument, in which is resting on the Colorado-Utah border.

This image, above, is an example of ‘Light-Pollution’ skies. This setting is taking place at the Joshua Tree National park. This park is nesting inside of Southern California.

Chris has also provided some support on the development of the first world atlas that consists of the light pollution. However, this came out 15-Years ago.

Another contributor onto the research team for the Atlas Light Pollution, Dan Duriscoe, said “It was an ambitious project then. It’s an ambitious project now,”.

Looking into the original documentation of the atlas has discovered that, back then, only One-Fifth of the entire population did loose their ability to see the Milky Way just by walking outside into the nightly time. However, scientists are stating that the newest model of the Atlas is not in any way directly comparable onto the original Atlas. This is due to the wide range of different information, new satellites for example, as well as combined information that has been gathered from both ground and computer modules, in which provides a better picture upon how light is able to scatter across the atmosphere.

Communications director for the International Dark-Sky Association, Cheryl Ann Bishop, has also provided their input by saying “It’s really one of the most thorough studies that we have to date on light pollution across the globe.” In the fight against light pollution, she continues adding “The fact that we’re bathing our planet in artificial light at night is a relatively new phenomenon, and it’s essentially akin to a human experiment that we’re only just beginning to understand the ramifications of.”

Cheryl also informs us that the light pollution is hanging on the fringes of what is considered to truly be pollution. And in fact, this is also one of the biggest challenges in which Cheryl’s organization is facing to increase the awareness of this serious issue that is starting to develop in several countries. Cheryl says that people just want bigger brighter light, due to the fact that development is all they understand.

The typical light fixture, as well as the bulb, has an impact upon the light in which escapes into the darkness of the nightly skies. However, certain kinds of LED lights are providing more “Energy-Efficient” can dramatically increase the volume of the light-pollution.

There are communities inside of the United States that are taking their part in standing ground and actually acting upon the light pollution. Elvidge is praising the city for the design of their new street lights in Colorado. “They are really well-designed,” Elvidge says, “I think that is a result of public campaigns to reduce sky brightness and light pollution. It’s been taken up by cities and towns. They write it into the codes and then the builders have to meet those codes.”

Duriscoe proclaims that the natural scenery of the night skies protection is just as important as the protection we provide during the daytime scenery.

“In the daytime, you might go to the Grand Canyon and be disappointed if there was a veiling haze in front of your view,” noted by Duriscoe, “The same is true at night if this haze of light that is scattered through the atmosphere is obscuring your view of the heavens.”

Duriscoe’s research does prove that there are still a few national parks in which has near-pristine night skies. As we can see, the Dry Tortugas, which is located just off of of the Florida Keys, has practically untouched and unaffected night-skies. We can also see that the Big Bend National Park also has one of the darkest night-skies.

We cannot forget about the Death Valley. Death Valley is widely known for having one of the darkest skies. Duriscoe, who grew up near Los Angeles, says that it never truly got dark there. Which is why he is able to clearly recall a time, back in the late 1960’s, when his family was driving out of the darkness of Death Valley during the night time.

Sources: NPR | ScienceAdvances | ResearchGate | LightPollution | DarkSky | AAS | NPS |

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