The light pollution which is caused by excessive artificial lighting has been significantly affecting the astronomical observations.
Several factors have been contributing by hindering the visibility such as outdoor building lights, advertising and roads.
It is creating difficulties for space scientists to see the clear visibility of faint stellar objects like galaxies and clouds.
According to the recorded data statistics, the rate of human produced light is increasing in the night sky by 10% every year.
The orbiting telescopes like the Hubble Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope have given researchers an unprecedented approach to view the cosmos, as they retain the ability to see light blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere.
These telescopes have a significant role to continue driving innovative tools to achieve the mission of astronomers.
However, these telescopes can preserve light with gigantic parabolic mirrors that can be up to 20 to 35 feet.
The movement of all astronomical observations to escape light pollution would not be possible.
Space missions have already greater cost, and a large quantity of terrestrial telescopes are in operation.
As human activity propagates, remote areas that host observatories become less remote. Light which vaults from the urban areas moderately brightens up the dark sky at mountaintop astronomical observatories up to 200 miles.
The urban areas are closer to an observatory, and the sky diffused glow is greeting stronger, making detection of the dimmest galaxies and stars much harder.
The role of LED Revolution
Astronomers particularly care about the artificial light in the blue green color of the electromagnetic spectrum, which used to be the darkest part of the night sky.
The most common outdoor lighting was from the sodium vapor discharge lamps, primarily a type of gas discharge lamp that produces light by passing an electric current through vaporized sodium metal.
It produces an orange pink glow which means they put out very little blue and green light.
Mainly, observatories being close to growing urban areas had skies that were particularly dark in blue and green spectrum and ultimately enabling all kinds of the new observations.
Afterwards, the revolution of solid-state LED lighting occurred, and these lights put on the broader level of rainbow color while maintaining efficiency levels, aimed to produce a large amount of energy per watt of electricity.
The preliminary versions of LEDs show a larger fraction of their energy in the blue and green, and with the advancement of technology it gives the same efficiency with warmer lights as compared to those who have less blue and green.
In this connection, the U.S. The Department of Energy initiated a study that predicts the higher energy efficiency of LEDs which particularly means the amount of energy used for lights at night can go down with the light roughly emitting the same.
While the satellites going down at the Earth reveals that is not actually the case. Rather, the amount of light is continuously rising which means that cities are buckled up to keep their electricity bills and energy efficiency at the same level and getting more light.
It has been observed that telescopes in the darker sequestered regions like northern Chile or western Texas experience light pollution from the industrial activities like open cut mining and gas facilities.
Perhaps, this light pollution could mean the facility but it does not retain the same ability to encounter the faintest galaxies and stars.
Nevertheless, light pollution not only affects observatories but today 80% of the world’s population is unable to see the Milky Way at night.
Some Asian cities are so bright that the people walking outdoors cannot visually be dark adapted.
Keeping in view the declaration of the International Astronomical Union in 2009, it is a comprehensive right to starlight. People having a connection with the dark night sky, it’s a spectacular beauty that you don’t have to be an astronomer to acknowledge it.