With the increasing light pollution, the new generation will no longer see the stars

Lovers sky and the Astronomy You can worry from now on, imagine You no longer see the stars in the night sky? Well, with a significant increase every year in light pollution In large centers, the ability to visualize stars decreases.

Big cities like Sao PauloAnd New York, among others, already suffer from this perception. Much says that file pollution of major cities It ends up hurting and seeing a lot of stars in the sky is an internal thing.

This is not a mistake, but this pollution does not only consist of suspended particles, it also has something to do with Cities shine. In fact, in a study published in 2016, it was reported that about 83% of the population lives under a polluted night sky.

You will not see the stars anymore

Scientists have estimated that even before the end of this century, Many stars will disappear. The account involved thousands of people looking at the sky each night. The result after measuring the night glow caused by artificial lights showed this Light pollution is increasing exponentially every yearThis makes it difficult to see the stars with the naked eye.

The problem of light pollution has only grown since astronomers had to leave cities to see the stars in the last century.

Through these studies and with deterioration trend of light pollution Against the development of large cities in the form of Technology emitted by more and more artificial lightthe result is frightening: a child who lives today in an area where 250 stars can be seen, by the time he is 18, will only be able to see 100 of that total in the same area, by the time he is 80. It is possible that only 5 of the brightest stars are still visibleAccording to Christopher Kyba, a researcher at German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ). in pothole.

In 2017, a study reported a 2.2% increase in light pollution, a much lower figure than the 9.6% shown in the most recent study. The difference is that Before almost all research relied on satellite data And although it seems that these very powerful artifacts are effective in capturing the brightness of the night, this is not entirely true.

where Radiometers or satellite cameras Unable to record the horizontal pollution of light or the light emitted from facades, shop windows, or advertising signs that also obscure the view of the sky, the account is unrealistic. Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel is a researcher in the School of Physical Sciences at Complutense University reports it Satellites do not see blue light and it is precisely this light emitted by LEDs that currently leads to light pollution in cities.

New calculation solution that appears a Dramatic increase in night light pollution It was not the use of what satellites see from above, but what humans see below, which was published in Sciences. The human factor is made possible by the support of over 51,000 observations made by people From all over the world who have installed an application from the Globe at Night project, promoted by National Science Foundation (NSF)a government agency we.

Looking at the stars has never been so important

For scientists to be able to A new account based on the human factorParticipants had to look at the sky and choose from a series of seven-star maps the one that best suited what they saw. However, Thousands of records were collected over the course of 12 years.

Many have already wondered about the fact of attributing something so remote to the naked eye to human reality, Something could fail and putting records at risk. However, Kyba guarantees it Although the individual observations are not very accurate, The method’s power comes from combining thousands of themas the average of all these imprecise observations is actually very stable.

However, it should be noted The job has a weakness And that it is related to the human factor, but that is because most of the observations were made in North America and Europe, Japan And South Korea. That is, in other parts of the planet, including South America, we just have it Information based on what the satellites are recording.

Study continues

It is normal that you need New informationAnd the discoveries and even the doubts of the human mind, are what nourish us, and this is the magic of the world.

Many dream See the earth from spacecf Continental Lightswhich of course can sound very cool and beautiful, but Fabio Falchi, researcher at Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologia dell’Inquinamento Luminoso in ItalyReports: “Looking at the images from the International Space Station of the Earth’s night hemisphere, people marvel at the beauty of the city lights. They don’t realize that they are images of pollution.”.

“It’s like admiring her beauty,” says Falci Colors of the rainbow that benzene is created in the water and not realizing that it is a chemical pollution.”