According to an article published today in, India Today, a study has found out that due to an increased level of pollution in the atmosphere, the stars over the night sky are getting diminished. And in a strange occurrence, the skies of th night keep glowing. This phenomenon is due to the incessant shine of electric lights at night which is intensifying this process. This data analysis has been collected the researchers from over fifty thousand amateur stargazers.
A further study conducted by the researchers states that the total number of visible stars that have been reported from the observation sites from 2011 up to 2022 states the count of stars has gone down in their numbers. But there has been an increase in the brightness of the night sky from seven to eleven percent, each year. This number is more than the previous measurement revealed in the satellite data.
Fabio Falchi who happens to be a physicist says that a new set of findings that have come up in the Science journal. It states that the starlight of the night is getting diminished because there has been an increase of light in the background sky each year by ten percent. This is a result of artificial lights. This is turning out to be a thing of concern because each year we are losing more on the possibility of seeing the stars. If you still manage to view the dimmest star to date then there is every possibility that you live in a place that is darker compared to other places. If you happen to see only the brightest stars then you are living in an area that is highly polluted by light.
A study made in 20017 about the observations of satellites reveals that the outer glow on the Earth’s surface during the night is due to the increase of light in the area by two percent each year, at the area makes it so. The effects of light pollution are alarming because it is not only disturbing the ecological system but also affecting the animals and humans too. for example, research has already revealed that the increase in the pollution of light is causing a disturbance to the fireflies. The fireflies are losing their light. They need to retain their light because they use it for communication and reproduction.
Christopher Kyba, another physicist says that this annual change of ten percent is far bigger than he thought. This is noticeable within a lifetime. He along with his colleagues states an example that when if a child is born during a time when there are about two hundred and fifty stars visible during a clear night then, by the time he reaches eighteen years of age, there remain only a hundred visible stars.
In this same process, the data has been collected from amateur stargazers. Volunteers while searching for the Orion recollects that it has three stars across its belt. But, what they find in the sky is a mismatch because of the increase in light pollution.