Can we save our night skies?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2021
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our connection to the night sky spans cultures and millennia: observing the stars and planets helped our ancestors navigate the world, tell stories about the constellations, and understand our place in the universe. But these days, for the vast majority of us, seeing the stars is getting harder. 80% of people live under light polluted skies, and in many cities you’re lucky to see a handful of stars at night.
This state of affairs is bothering CrowdScience listener and keen stargazer Mo from Salt Lake City in the USA, who wonders if there’s anything we can do about light pollution. Of course, we could simply turn out all the lights, but that’s unrealistic. So what are smarter ways of lighting our communities to preserve our view of the cosmos?
Increasingly worried by the effect of artificial lighting on the ability to observe stars, astronomer Dr Jason Pun set up a series of monitoring stations to continuously measure ‘sky glow’. By comparing sky glow across the world, he wants to figure out which approaches work best.
One community taking an active approach is the South Downs National Park in South East England, one of a number of Dark Sky Reserves around the word. We visit the park and speak to the Dark Skies Officer there, to find out how people are coming together to turn down their lights and keep the night dark.
And it’s not just stargazing that’s threatened by light pollution. Artificial light at night disrupts the circadian rhythms of wildlife. We visit a project in rural Germany looking into the benefits of dark-sky-friendly lighting on insect populations there.
With contributions from Dr Jason Pun, Paulina Villalobos, Dan Oakley, Doug Jones, Dr Sibylle Schroer and Sophia Dehn.
Presented by Anand Jagatia with additional reporting by Felix Franz
Produced by Cathy Edwards
[Image credit: Getty Images]
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. This is crowd science from the BBC World Service. I'm Anan Jagatia and I'm lying on my back staring up at an absolutely crystal clear sky. |
| 0:49.0 | It is pitch black, it's the middle of the night, one in the morning. I've already seen a few shooting stars, |
| 0:57.2 | but the other thing I can see as my eyes adjust a little bit to the darkness is the Milky Way, this streak of whiteness across the sky. |
| 1:08.4 | And it's just incredible. |
| 1:14.0 | What is there to say that hasn't been said before about the heavens? |
| 1:19.0 | I'm two hours away from Salt Lake City at the Bonneville, Saw Flats, which is a big expanse of |
| 1:30.0 | Salt Crest. |
| 1:32.0 | One of our listeners has also made his own nighttime pilgrimage to see the same spectacle where he lives. |
| 1:40.0 | It's a great area to stargase because it's further away from most of the light pollution. |
| 1:47.0 | It's crazy how much a small amount of light from the car door or even a phone interrupts our view. |
| 1:59.2 | I'm here with a couple of friends trying to watch the it's the perseid meteor shower. |
| 2:06.5 | That's my friend Connor reminding me how to pronounce it. We already saw a bunch of shooting stars. They're really beautiful to look at. |
| 2:21.4 | I'm Mo, I love Breham and I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. |
| 2:28.0 | My question is, can anything be done to reduce light pollution? I really enjoy stargazing but the light |
| 2:35.8 | pollution gets in the way. So it sounds like it was an amazing stargazing |
| 2:40.3 | trip that you went on. It was just very breathtaking being able to see just |
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