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Do you remember that first time when you did see a clear dark night sky?

Yeah, I think the first time was when Comet Hayaku-Tok came through and was visible from

Southern California.

This is Dr. Chanda Prescott Weinstein.

She teaches physics at the University of New Hampshire and is the author of the Disordered

Cosmos.

And the night sky has been important to her since childhood.

I don't know how she found the time and money to do this, but my mom drew us out to

Joshua Tree and got her hands on some binoculars so that we could look at it.

And so I think I must have been 14 or 15, yeah.

And so that was my first time being like, oh, so we go out to the desert and they're all

of these things that are visible.

Chanda grew up in East LA, where her view of the night sky was usually obscured by light

pollution and smog.

It was either later that year or the following year, I went on a camping trip in Giants

Sequoia with my dad and my stepmother and my sister.

And my dad and I were looking up at the sky one night and I was like, what's all of that

white stuff?

And he said, have you never seen the Milky Way before?

And I just like, I had no idea that you could actually see the Milky Way without a telescope.

I had no idea at all.

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