Stellar Explorations

Stellar Explorations

The spectacular green colors visible in the night sky here are due to a phenomenon known as airglow. Airglow is not an optical illusion, but a genuine light source that results from chemical reactions in Earth’s upper atmosphere. It is far too faint to be visible during the daytime, and in most human-inhabited places it is drowned out by light pollution.

Image details: Single exposure, 10s

The Fading Milky Way

Light pollution is a growing environmental problem that threatens to erase the night sky before its time. A recent study revealed that perhaps two-thirds of the world's population can no longer look upwards at night and see the Milky Way—a hazy swath of stars that on warm summer nights spans the sky from horizon to horizon.

The Milky Way is dimming, not because the end of the Universe is near, but rather as a result of light pollution: the inadvertent illumination of the atmosphere from street lights, outdoor advertising, homes, schools, airports and other sources. Every night billions of bulbs send their energy skyward where microscopic bits of matter—air molecules, airborne dust, and water vapor droplets—reflect much of the wasted light back to Earth. 

(Source: NASA)

Learn more:

International Dark-Sky Association

https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution

Globe at Night

https://www.globeatnight.org

Night Sky Network (NASA/JPL)

https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

Image Credit: Clément Brustel

Location: France

Image Date: August 19, 2023

Release Date: August 26, 2023

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