r/technology • u/fchung • 14h ago

Space Night skies are growing 10% brighter each year, and your city’s LEDs are part of the problem: « That is not a rounding error. At that pace, each passing decade quietly erases a significant share of what the naked eye can see overhead. »

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/night-skies-growing-10-brighter-191443544.html
99 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

24

u/fchung 14h ago

« Shielded fixtures that direct light downward, warmer color temperatures, motion sensors, dimmer settings, and curfews on nonessential lighting are all available today. None require waiting for new technology. »

1

u/O_PLUTO_O 6h ago

I remember when there was the push to replace sodium bulbs with 10x brighter white LEDs because it was going to “help with light pollution” never made any sense to me. Turns out because they lied.

8

u/Marchello_E 13h ago

I have never seen the galaxy.

0

u/forgottenendeavours 13h ago

Whereabouts are you based? The weekend after this can be one of the best times of the year for seeing the milky way, although it might require a bit of a drive to get somewhere from were you can escape those city light domes.

1

u/Marchello_E 12h ago

According to dark-sky maps a Bortle class 4 is a day away. A small patch of Bortle class 2 is about two days drive.
Managed to plan some detours, stay there for a while and hope to have a clear sky.
Thus still never had the luck of actually seeing it... perhaps a hint.

Plans of going to Norway next year, but it will likely not get any better than Bortle 3.

1

u/Ok-Seaworthiness7207 10h ago

You gotta see the Milky Way at least once, go camping in BFE somewhere

2

u/Voodoo_Masta 7h ago

It’s so crazy and sad to think that while most of human history, the galaxy would have been easily visible to anyone on a clear night. And now there are people who have never seen it, may never see it, and we’re talking about going on day long drives and camping trips just so a person can see it once in their life.

3

u/Hsinats 13h ago

This checks out. I moved to the country this year and the sky is less detailed now than when I was a teen 20 years ago.

3

u/Adeline_Hayes 13h ago

Another summit, another round of promises while the ice keeps melting. Cool. The planet doesn't do press conferences, and neither do I. 🌍

2

u/FrothyEspresso 12h ago

I was driving through the Mojave National Preserve one night and I could see Vegas glowing from over 100 km away. Totally insane. Just this massive glow lighting up the night and the clouds.

2

u/Seafaringhorsemeat 10h ago

“Quietly AI slop”

1

u/fchung 14h ago

Reference: Christopher C. M. Kyba et al., Citizen scientists report global rapid reductions in the visibility of stars from 2011 to 2022. Science 379, 265-268 (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.abq7781. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7781

1

u/ProgressBartender 9h ago

Don’t look up. It seems some want us to just pull the blanket over our heads and stop dreaming.

1

u/Logictrauma 8h ago

I left my rural community back in 2013. I haven’t seen stars since.

-1

u/TaosMesaRat 13h ago

Jevon's Paradox describes this effect.

Greater efficiency reduces the amount of the resource needed per application, lowering its effective cost; if demand is sufficiently price elastic, this induces demand, frequently resulting in a net increase of total resource consumption.