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One Fifth of World's Population Can't See Milky Way At Night

Posted by timothy on from the 80-20-rule dept.

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.'"

7 of 612 comments (clear)

  1. Used be able to see it. by gubers33 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I originally moved into my house years ago, I was surrounded by farmland, but in the past few years my area got built up with Shopping Centers, Neighborhoods and whatnot. The light pollution has become so bad that I don't even bother bringing out my telescope anymore on summer nights. The convenience of having many stores close is nice, but everything it comes with price and I think this one is a little bit too much. I originally moved to the area to get out of Philadelphia, now it's not much different in terms of the sky.

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  2. I can see about 20 by riffzifnab · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I just recently got a new DSLR camera so now I'm playing around with all it's fancy features. I figured I would see if I could get a picture of the Milky Way from my deck in Cambridge MA. After processing the heck out of it I got about 20-30 stars... it was really kinda sad.

  3. Re:Well... I could. by Abreu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In our last vacation, my four-year old spent at least 30 minutes staring up to the night sky with his mouth open...

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  4. Re:Well... I could. by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In our last vacation, my four-year old spent at least 30 minutes staring up to the night sky with his mouth open...

    I know what you mean. I took our daughters camping just a month ago, and the 2.5 year old asked what all the lights in the sky were. Despite that, being _my_ daughter, she was able to identify the Big Dipper and find Polaris, by herself (thank you Stellarium)! That, at two and a half!

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  5. Re:Well... I could. by ShadowBlasko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I drove out west a few years ago. Took 140 out through southern Oregon. It was just BLACK. No moon, no lights, nothing but starlight.
    Once I got up in the mountains a bit I pulled off and just looked at the stars. It was amazing. I must have spent 4 hours out there just looking up.

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  6. I can't blame him by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I did pretty much the same thing. I went camping and saw the milky way for the first time. In my 30's.

    Honestly - my first words once I saw it were "What the hell is that?"

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    1. Re:I can't blame him by davew · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I did an evening class recently in astronomy. The tutor told us a story of a graduate student who went to South America to work at an observatory there.

      She was sent outside to check the weather. She came back in and said there was a huge cloud reaching across the sky.

      The guy in charge didn't think that sounded right at all, so he went out to check himself.

      It was the Milky Way. And the other astronomer had never seen it.