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Where the last pristine skies in America are
Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2019, 04:18 PM - Edit history (1)
Capital Weather Gang RetweetedWhere the last pristine skies in America are
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Where the last pristine skies in America are
Light pollution has been linked to a range of ailments in humans and abnormal behavior in wildlife.
By Christopher Ingraham
August 6 at 9:20 AM
There are precious few places left in the United States where you can still view a “pristine” night sky, according to a new study in the Journal of Environmental Management. Situated far from the glare of city and small town lights, these places offer the same unimpeded view of the cosmos that our ancestors saw thousands of years ago, before electric lighting conquered the darkness.
The study, led by Fabio Falchi of the Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute in Italy, plotted artificial light pollution at the county level in the United States, research that builds on a global atlas that he and others produced in 2016. It also adds to a growing body of research on light pollution, which has been linked to a host of ailments — such as depression, obesity, even cancer — and can confuse wildlife, muddling their sense of direction and migration patterns.
At the county level, the District of Columbia is the most light-polluted region of the country, with more than 200,000 times the artificial brightness of America’s darkest place, the city and borough of Yakutat in Alaska.
Among the nation’s largest cities, Washington also stands out as being the farthest removed from a place with clear night skies: a little more than 800 miles. By contrast, the notoriously illuminated Las Vegas is a little more than 100 miles away from the pristine skies of northern Arizona.
....
Christopher Ingraham writes about all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center. Follow https://twitter.com/_cingraham
Where the last pristine skies in America are
Light pollution has been linked to a range of ailments in humans and abnormal behavior in wildlife.
By Christopher Ingraham
August 6 at 9:20 AM
There are precious few places left in the United States where you can still view a “pristine” night sky, according to a new study in the Journal of Environmental Management. Situated far from the glare of city and small town lights, these places offer the same unimpeded view of the cosmos that our ancestors saw thousands of years ago, before electric lighting conquered the darkness.
The study, led by Fabio Falchi of the Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute in Italy, plotted artificial light pollution at the county level in the United States, research that builds on a global atlas that he and others produced in 2016. It also adds to a growing body of research on light pollution, which has been linked to a host of ailments — such as depression, obesity, even cancer — and can confuse wildlife, muddling their sense of direction and migration patterns.
At the county level, the District of Columbia is the most light-polluted region of the country, with more than 200,000 times the artificial brightness of America’s darkest place, the city and borough of Yakutat in Alaska.
Among the nation’s largest cities, Washington also stands out as being the farthest removed from a place with clear night skies: a little more than 800 miles. By contrast, the notoriously illuminated Las Vegas is a little more than 100 miles away from the pristine skies of northern Arizona.
....
Christopher Ingraham writes about all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center. Follow https://twitter.com/_cingraham
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