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One Fifth of World's Population Can't See Milky Way At Night
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Cosmos Magazine: "Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population — mostly in Europe, Britain and the US — to lose their ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky.
'The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage,' said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
Yet 'more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the US population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way.'"
Yes we are in the Milky Way galaxy, so technically any nearby stars you can see are part of the Milky Way. However, the Milky Way they're referring to is a dense band of distant stars you see when looking towards the galactic core. It's visible as a band of white across the sky. There's some photo's in the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
The fact that you seem to not understand what they're referring to clearly illustrates their point. (I'm assuming that your question was serious.) Apparently you've never seen (or at least noticed) this band of stars. Do yourself a favor and go out to the mountains or desert. The beauty of the night sky in areas away from the cities is well worth the trip.
Galaxy is greek for Milky. But then again everything is all greek to me.
Much like planet is greek for wonderer.
Go on mod me funny and informative.
Real New Yorker's never look up. That's just for tourists.
Developers: We can use your help.
Note to astronomy guys - some pictures of what the milky way looks like with the naked eye would be very appreciated on that wikipedia page.
The panoramic shots are cool, as are the color-enhanced ones. But for all that people talk about the milky way so often, and the fact that I have seen it several times (if faintly) in person, I've always been very vague on whether I was actually seeing it because so few of the common pictures show what it'll actually look like :)
If you look at the section labelled "Age" on the wiki page, you will see a good picture of what the Milky Way looks like to most people not living in a light polluted city.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Even just outside Lincoln, not only can you see the Milky Way, but many college kids would ask me what the haze was amidst it...I would just reply, those are the rest of the stars...they always were stunned.
Perhaps this is why kids now adays have such big egos, they don't have to look up and see how insignificant they really are.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?