I don't like using an alarm to wake up. It's so utterly unnatural, but it's a requirement of this work-a-day world we live in. I'm not much of an early riser, but today the alarm had its advantages.
Because I had to be in north San Diego County at 8 a.m. for a training ride with my cycling team, I set my alarm for 5:15 (yes, totally ungodly). When I went outside to get the Sunday Los Angeles Times, it was still dark enough to see the waning crescent moon surrounded by stars. Well, not exactly surrounded. I was able to make out the major constellations (Centaurus, Ursa Major) and the brightest stars (Vega was amazing).
Like every morning, I had to use my arms and hands to cover the many street lights and porch lights to be able to see the few stars that are bright enough to pierce the "light pollution." Because we've been experiencing Santa Ana winds of late, there was no discernible air pollution. The only thing that keeps those of us who live in the San Bernardino Valley from seeing a sky full of stars is the prevalence of bright lights.
There is a great story in National Geographic (image above) about the end of night. We know, for example, that we sleep a lot less since the electric light bulb was invented (averaging less than seven hours now, compared to ten before). In our quest to extend our days, we've sacrificed a lot, including our ability to see and appreciate the cosmos.
The bright lights of our buildings and our roadways also wreak havoc on many of our planets' species, notably birds and animals that rely on the light of the sun or the moon to direct their behavior. Nesting sea turtles, which seek dark beaches for nesting, are finding fewer and fewer places that meet this need. Their hatchlings, which use the light of the horizon to navigate toward the ocean, are frequently misguided -- to their inevitable death -- by lights on shore.
In the late 1990s, I had the incredible opportunity to spend a day with artist James Turrell at his ranch outside of Flagstaff, Ariz. A graduate of my employer at the time (Claremont Graduate University), I was there to interview him about the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant he was awarded for his wonderful art that uses light and space to challenge our perception. Raised a Quaker, Terrell is a soft-spoken genius whose ideas are boundless. He talked that day about how the light we're seeing from the most remote stars began its journey to us before our galaxy was born. "Ancient light," he called it.
His most famous project, which I was unable to visit because the roads were impassible due to snow, is Roden Crater. He purchased the crater, and the adjacent land, after an extensive search for the perfect place to create this monumental art work/astronomical observatory. One of the most important criteria for his choice was that the location be as free as possible from light pollution.
Turrell has been instrumental in Flagstaff being a leader in requiring that city lights be focused downward in order to minimize their impact on the night sky. In 2001, it was designated the first International Dark Sky City. Bravo! We should all push for such a designation in our own cities.
In 1987, while driving back to the hotel in Kona after visiting Volcano National Park on the big Island of Hawai'i, I looked out the window of the rental car and saw something that made me pull over immediately. It was about 1 a.m. and the moonless sky was virtually solid with stars. It was so dense that I could barely make out the Milky Way. I turned off the car and its headlights, let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and stood in awe. If we saw that kind of celestial display every night of our lives, we might have a different perspective on our place on the planet, and in the universe.
I haven't seen a sky like that since, but plan to. My goal is to visit the 14,000-ft.-high Mauna Kea observatories on Hawai'i and see an even more magnificent display. When I get there, I'll give thanks for the darkness that allows us to see ancient light.
2 comments:
You know, in sci-fi shows they like to say men are drawn to the sky because of the stars they see, they want to know what it was like out there.
When I was a teenager I was in the school's astronomy club, one of the biggest challenge for us was living in a city with so much light pollution(not called "Pearl of the orient" for nothing, the only way you would see stars is going out to mountains that is really hard to get to and spend a night there. With the humid weather sometimes these little trips came to nothing because of thick cloud coverage.
In the North American cities I have been lucky enough to live in I can look up into the sky and see stars anytime. It was a thing I did not take for granted... but even so, light pollution is still an issue and you won't be able to see as much stars we you would have been in a darker area....
What I wanted to say is, if we have always have electric lights, or our future generations that grew up with too much artificial lights, would they been drawn to the sky? They might be too busy to look at the sky and the countless stars. Maybe the sky will no longer fascinate them?
Thanks for your comment, Joyce. I hope future generations don't lose our appreciation for the night sky!
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