Light pollution is a big problem, and it’s only getting worse — not just near cities but everywhere thanks to increased satellite constellations. How bad is the problem, and how can we fix it?

Show Notes

Universe Today (Patreon)

Universe Today

CosmoQuest (Patreon)

Find Your Night Sky Brightness on the Bortle Scale (Astro Backyard)

Starlink satellites can look like a plume or train of light (EarthSky)

Light pollution map

Light Pollution Map (Dark Site Finder)

One-Third of Humanity Can’t See the Milky Way (Astronomy)

Up with People

International Space Station (NASA)

Spot the Station (NASA)

United Nations

IAU

International Dark-Sky Association

UNESCO World Heritage Centre – World Heritage List (UNESCO)

Saving the night sky: New Zealand’s craziest experiment yet? (BBC Travel)

Aoraki Mackenzie (New Zealand) (IDSA)

Here’s why hut-hiking is the best way to see New Zealand (National Geographic)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Warner Bros.)

NIGHTS OVER TUCSON: How the Tucson, Arizona, LED Conversion Improved the Quality of the Night (IDSA)

Bright LEDs could spell the end of dark skies https://www.energy.gov/eere/ssl/potential-impacts-led-street-lighting-sky-glow (MIT)

LED streetlights are increasing blue-light pollution in Europe (Physics World)

Starlink

Amazon reserves up to 83 launches for Project Kuiper satellites (GeekWire)

Starlink Satellites Are Fainter Now — But Still Visible (Sky & Telescope)

Apparent Magnitude (Swinburne University)

Skyglow (Wikipedia)

Coruscant (Wookiepedia)

Star Trek

Transcript

Transcriptions provided by GMR Transcription Services

Fraser: Astronomy Cast, Episode 659 “Clear Skies and Bright Satellites”. Welcome to Astronomy Cast, your weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today. I have been a space and astronomy journalist for over 20 years. And with me is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the Director of CosmoQuest. Hey, Pamela. How are you doing?

Dr. Gay: I am doing well. I want to apologize to our audience if today’s quality isn’t what you are used to. One of our team members, Annie Wilson, is getting married this week and all of us are in Vegas to celebrate. So, I’m coming to you from hotel internet, which is not the best. But the show will go on.

Fraser: So, you might not know but every time a person signs up as a patron to Universe Today, I send them an email asking them to do an interview with me. And it’s actually talking to me like we’re at a Zoom meeting and I’m asking you a bunch of questions about where you found Universe Today and so on. And I would say about half of the people first found out about Universe Today through Astronomy Cast.

Dr. Gay: Wow.

Fraser: So, for those of you who have sort of followed this journey from Astronomy Cast to Universe Today, thank you. I really appreciate it. For those of you who don’t realize, it’s so funny. Every episode I go, “I’m the publisher of Universe Today.” And people are like, “I didn’t realize that you did Universe Today or what this Universe Today thing was.” So, maybe I need to say, “Universe Today” 10 times a show or something. I don’t know. But it’s been very interesting to have this conversation with people. So, just a secret bonus if you didn’t know, if you sign up for my Patreon over at patreon.com/universetoday, I will ask you to talk to me. And it will actually be me and we will actually talk.

Dr. Gay: That’s amazing.

Fraser: Right.

Dr. Gay: I need to start doing that for CosmoQuest, I think. That’s amazing. I –

Fraser: It is so much fun.

Dr. Gay: – love that idea.

Fraser: It’s so much fun. And after you see all these trolls, all these nasty people out there on the internet, people yelling and fighting each other, and you just get like 15 minutes of pure bliss talking to people about interesting things. And it just restores your faith in humanity. Anyone who does run a Patreon, talk to your fans. It’s so much fun. Now, light pollution is a big problem and it’s only getting worse; not just your cities, but everywhere thanks to increased satellite constellations. How bad is the problem and how can we fix it? So, you’re right now traveling. You’re in Las Vegas. What Bortle number would you give the place?

Dr. Gay: Oh, man. How bad does it go? It’s not quite Times Square or that intersection in Tokyo with the crazy crosswalks, but there’s not a lot of stars up there or planets. It’s just kind of a few things. And for better or worse, unless there’s a Starlink train going over where I am right now, you’re not even gonna see the satellites because of all those lights pointed up on the buildings, pointed down on the ground that are scattering into the sky.

Fraser: And actually, Vegas is an island of light pollution in an ocean of pretty dark skies in the West side of the United States. Like, if you look at a map of the light pollution in the U.S., there is this clear line between the West and the East. The East is a nightmare. It’s funny. So, I talk to people about how to find dark skies, and so I pull of the dark sky finder map which overlays light pollution on top of Google Maps. And you can sort of zip around and look at various places, and I’m looking for stuff that is green. The best you can have is black. Then, after that is blue, and then green. Green lets you see the Milky Way. If you’re in green, you can see the Milky Way.

And for people on the West side, it’s easy. You just go in any direction for about 10 minutes and you should be able to see the Milky Way. For people in the East, it can be an hour to get somewhere, two hours to get somewhere where they can actually see the Milky Way. And for people in Europe there’s nowhere you can go. Get on a boat and –

Dr. Gay: Oh, you can’t really. In Portugal, there’s this dark sky site. In Spain, there’s a dark sky site. But they’re not dark the way we’re used to dark here.

Fraser: And so, if you’re in, say, the Netherlands, I don’t know. The Alps? There’s just nowhere to go. It’s terrifying. And I think a third of humanity...