Light pollution hides the Milky Way from a third of humanity

A veil of light is blanking out the night sky for more and more of the world’s population: Milky Way Can No Longer Be Seen By One-Third of Humanity Because of Light Pollution – Nature World News

The atlas shows that more than 80 percent of the world and more than 99 percent of the U.S. and European populations live under light-polluted skies. Light pollution is most evident in developed countries, where the ubiquitous presence of artificial lights has created a luminous fog that blots out the stars and constellations once visible during the night.

“We’ve got whole generations of people in the United States who have never seen the Milky Way,” Chris Elvidge of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and co-author of the study said in a report published in Science Daily.

“It’s a big part of our connection to the cosmos – and it’s been lost,” he added.

Here are maps of light pollution:  The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness – Science Advances

Here are some places with the best dark skys: Space Tourism on Earth: The 7 Dark Sky Reserves to Visit Right Now – Inverse.