It is not uncommon to be anxious at the beginning of a night at Mcdonald Observatory. Jason Young, a visiting lecturer in astronomy at Mount Holyoke, starts by tracking the steadiness of the atmosphere, looking at “standard” stars to calibrate the Harlan J. Smith Telescope. He makes sure the telescope’s iconic white dome stays on track, checks that there are no stray lights in the dome that could mar data collection, and finally, watches for clouds. By midnight, he settles into the telescope’s top floor control center, alone in a pool of light from two huge computer monitors.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” said Young. “But if everything goes smoothly, then it’s pretty easy to just keep an eye on things.”
The observatory can be found high above the Chihuahuan Desert in the Davis Mountains. The isolated mountain range of West Texas is beautiful at day. It’s dotted with dark clumps like oak, pinion and juniper, which are scattered over the gold and green khaki grasslands. Clear skies nighttime reveal endless stars trails.
West Texas’ stars at night are bright and large. The darkness can be affected by light coming from far away, such as cars and private homes. Tristan Ahtone Young is observing LEDA 1562327, a diffuse spiral galaxy interacting with a second galaxy that, in his words, are going through a “weird phase” in their evolution: They have enough gas to form stars, but for some reason, aren’t. Meanwhile, next door — astronomically-speaking — two similar galaxies are colliding, forming stars at a rate of nearly 100 per year.
“It’s like a quiet cottage right next to a rock concert,” said Young. “So, I’m trying to figure out why these two are not doing anything when the neighborhood seems to be very active.”
The Davis Mountains were considered one of the darkest areas in North America until a decade ago. In 1933, the University of Texas set up an observatory on Mount Locke. Later, it expanded to Mount Fowlkes nearby, taking advantage of the clear nights and high altitude. The observatory’s biggest project for the last four years has been HETDEX, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment, created to map the night sky out to 11 billion light years in order to figure out why the universe is expanding as it ages.
Clear, dark skies can be a valuable resource for doing astronomical research. But, there are growing threats to night vision from artificial light. The McDonald Observatory, which is located at the southern border of the Permian basinin, one the largest oil fields in America, can be found. The region saw a dramatic increase in oil and gas production after the adoption of hydraulic drilling technology and other drilling techniques. The boom brought thousands of well pads, midstream facilities, flare stacks, and traffic, filling the night sky with artificial light, easily seen by the naked eye as “skyglow,” a massive dome of orange glare on what was once an almost dark horizon.
Artificial light from Permian Basin. Tristan Ahtone A sudden increase in oil and gas drilling caused a 60 percent rise in light Pollution at the observatory. This threatened the work McDonald’s has been doing for almost a century. Some 100 miles to the north, on the northern edge of the Permian, Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico noticed a similar change: “They had a 710 percent increase in light pollution in about eight years,” said Stephen Hummel, the Dark Skies Initiative Coordinator at McDonald. In 2020 alone, production in the Permian accounted for 30 percent of all crude oil production and 14 percent of the country’s natural gas production.
“Seeing the real sky, the old-fashioned way, is still important,” said Hummel. “There should be places left … that we can preserve where people can go and experience the night.”
The impact of the loss of darkness can have far-reaching consequences. The world can feel calm and old when it is lit by starlight. The stars allow you to experience a sense and perception of space and time similar to artists, philosophers, and astronomers. We can find old records about our relationships with the night. The Kiowa sister, for example, was able to climb onto a stump and lift their brother to safety in heaven when he became a bear. Or the sea-voyaging chiefs who navigated the Polynesian Triangle, following the rising and setting celestial bodies. They settled islands across the Pacific. The journeys of these seafarers inspired modern Indigenous seafarers, who continue to follow the same ocean paths and are connected to the same epic stories by the stars.
But on land, more than 80 percent of the planet’s population lives under light-polluted skies. Around 2.5 billion people around the globe cannot see the Milky Way, or more than a third. The pollution can have a wide range of consequences, ranging from the loss or disappearance of night-loving creatures to unique interpretations of the world’s position.
At the McDonald Observatory, oil and gas development offers an extreme example of this rapid loss of the night — without access to a dark sky, our ability to understand the origin and structure of the universe disappears in the haze of skyglow.
The McDonald Observatory’s 0.9 meter telescope at work. The Harlan J. Smith telescope can be seen in the background. Tristan Ahtone “Humans have looked up for as long as we have been human and understood our place in society and our place in the cosmos by telling stories of the stars,” said Ruskin Hartley, Executive Director of the International Dark-Sky Association. “Light pollution is fundamentally robbing humans of something that has been part of the human experience for as long as we’ve been on the planet.”
Light pollution can also have serious consequences for astronomy. Skyglow, which is the result of an expanding built environment, has a significant impact on everything. As cities grow and energy development continues, homes are pushed deeper into the darkest parts of the planet.
Ambient light pollution can cause chronodisruption — the disruption of circadian rhythms, which can impact brain wave patterns, hormone secretion, and neuronal activities. People have evolved to live in daylight and darkness. This can cause sleep-wake patterns that impact the body’s production of melatonin. A lower level of melatonin has been linked to increased rates of obesity, depression, diabetes, anxiety, and hypertension. Artificial light exposure at night has been linked to increased cancer risk, including breast and colorectal cancers in females, and prostate and pancreatic cancers for men.
Sea turtles that have just been hatched are guided by the moon. Artificial lighting can make it difficult for hatchlings to see, leading them towards land where predators can eat them or dehydrate them. Bright night lights can confuse or kill migrating birds. They will follow the stars and the moon to get to their seasonal destinations. In New York City, for instance, the Tribute in Light, a 9/11 memorial “comprised of eighty-eight 7,000-watt xenon lightbulbs positioned into two 48-foot squares, echoing the shape and orientation of the Twin Towers,” is thought to have confused, disoriented, or killed an estimated 1.1 million birds between 2010 and 2016. Ornithologists say that the light traps hundreds of birds inside the beams.
The Loggerhead turtle hatches in darkness and makes its way to sea. Mustafa Ciftci / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Nearly 70 percent of mammals are nocturnal and artificial light influences everything from their nesting behaviors to feeding habits — including their access to food sources like insects. Researchers believe artificial light has significant global effects on plant ecosystems. These include overgrowth and changes to pollination.
Insects provide “vital ecological services” to the world, like waste removal and pollination, and artificial light at night is particularly devastating to the work insects perform. In the United States alone, it’s estimated that insects involved with dung burial, pest control, pollination, and wildlife nutrition provide nearly $57 billion in ecological services. Their work can be affected by artificial light. Night lights can disorient and tire insects. They may also collide with lamps or become prey for predators. Increased light pollution has also been associated with a higher risk for infection from insect-transmitted diseases, like malaria and chagas — brighter towns and cities mean more mosquitoes.
“It’s nice when we have those numbers and the ability to quantify,” said Hartley of the International Dark-Sky Association. “But we can’t lose sight of the things that we’ll never be able to turn into dollars and cents.”
Due to light pollution from industrial and urban areas, only 2-5 percent of Australians can see the Milky Way. Long-term consequences can be devastating for Aboriginal people who live in urban areas such as Sydney and Melbourne, where they have knowledge about the night skies. Gamilaraay Astronomer Peter Swanton examines light pollution in Australia. He determines what objects are lost at various levels of skyglow and translate this information into traditional knowledge systems.
“There’s a Gamilaraay story about the Milky Way, and it uses the dark patches of the Milky Way to form the celestial emu,” said Swanton. “We use that emu almost like a calendar and based on what the emu is doing in the sky, we can have an idea of what’s happening with the emus here on Earth.”
The Dark Emu, aboriginal sky legend, rises from the Tasman Sea at the south coast of Victoria, Australia. VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images. This includes monitoring the breeding patterns of emu so that people can hunt eggs or follow the seasons. Swanton also claims that the night skies have been used to mark certain ceremonial times and understand when dry or moist seasons are approaching.
“Aboriginal stories are all relational,” said Swanton. “They’re all about how you relate to the world around you, to your country, and to that connection with the sky.”
”There’s always value in trying to understand our universe,” said Young at the McDonald Observatory. “It helps us understand where we come from.”
Restoring the night sky is not as difficult as finding solutions to microplastics in oceans or perfecting carbon capture prior to planet crosses critical temperature thresholds.
Begin by visualizing a dark room with one bulb hanging from the ceiling. Turn on the light. Although the room may appear dark from the light, the glare of the naked bulb is not too harsh. A lampshade can be used to reduce the glare, while the light is directed toward the ceiling and floor. If you cover the shade with a cloth, the ceiling will become darker while the downward-facing light will shine brighter.
You can now apply the same logic outdoors to picture unshielded floodlights (streetlights), wallpacks, barn light, bollards, or other period-style fixtures that are burning through the night. Poor night-lighting practices in the United States alone cost $3.3 billion annually in electricity generation and lost energy. Add shielding to those lights, direct them downward to the ground, turn down the intensity, turn them off when they’re not in use, and even change the color — white or amber colors scatter less light into the atmosphere than daylight-white or blue lights — and much of that skyglow begins to disappear.
The Otto Strave telescope in Davis Mountains. Tristan Ahtone “The night sky is one of the only resources that the National Park Service manages that’s 100 percent restorable,” said Bob Meadows, a physical scientist with the Park Service’s Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division. “We’re just masking our ability to see it and experience it.”
After the McDonald Observatory’s light pollution explosion, scientists started contacting oil and gas companies in the Permian basin to advocate for better lighting. Many companies agreed, and employees reported better working conditions and lower energy bills almost immediately. At McDonald, skyglow dropped dramatically — though it is still not as dark as it once was. This success however is not the norm. The remaining light pollution costs astronomers, such as Young, valuable time, and resources.
“Being in an area with light pollution is like trying to listen to someone in a crowded room: You can do it, but it takes a lot more work,” said Young.
On November 13, 1833, thousands of lights lit up the sky as they streaked across it.
Visible from what is currently Halifax, Canada, to Jamaica and points as far west as present-day Elm Fork on the Red River in Oklahoma, the Leonid meteor shower is recorded in the Kiowa calendar as D’ä’-p’é’gyä-de Sai, or “winter that the stars fell.” It is with good reason: It’s estimated that between 20 and 30 meteors streaked across the sky per second.
An engraving depicts the Leonid Meteor Shower seen above Niagara Falls in 1833. Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group via Getty Images “The event is still used as a chronological starting point by the old people of the various tribes,” wrote James Mooney in Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians — a translation of historic Kiowa records. “It is pictorially represented on most of the Dakota calendars.”
The Leonid shower will return in 2032. Were it to be equal to its power during D’ä’-p’é’gyä-de Sai, and you were standing in a dark place, like the Davis Mountains, meteors would fall with the intensity of a howling blizzard. They would shine on the scrubby and steep rocky hills around you, creating shadows under the McDonald Observatory white telescope domes. This would interrupt any astronomers’ work.
Only a few meteors are visible for almost 80 percent of planet. However, this is due to light pollution. These meteors are falling rock and frozen as old or human memory that then turn to fire at high altitudes.
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