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A call for scientists to halt the spoiling of the night sky with artificial light and satellites

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Unfettered access to dark night skies is rapidly diminishing, due to light pollution and satellite constellation tracks. Scientists should do more to stand up to ‘big light’ and ‘big space’ and preserve this natural resource.

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Fig. 1: Comparison between a dark night sky and one affected by ALAN.
Fig. 2: Starlink satellite trails impact the night sky over Carson National Forest, New Mexico.

M. Lewinsky/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank P. Marchant and S. Gallozzi for interesting discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain

    Fabio Falchi

  2. CieloBuio – Associazione per la Protezione del Cielo Notturno, Varese, Italy

    Fabio Falchi

  3. ISTIL – Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute, Thiene, Italy

    Fabio Falchi & Pierantonio Cinzano

  4. Independent scholar, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain

    Salvador Bará

  5. Física, Escola Superior de Saúde, Politécnico do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Raul C. Lima

  6. IA – Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Univ Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Raul C. Lima

  7. Agrupación Astronómica Coruñesa Ío, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain

    Martin Pawley

Authors
  1. Fabio Falchi
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  2. Salvador Bará
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  3. Pierantonio Cinzano
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  4. Raul C. Lima
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  5. Martin Pawley
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabio Falchi.

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Competing interests

F.F. is the President of CieloBuio (an unpaid position); the other authors declare no competing interests.

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Falchi, F., Bará, S., Cinzano, P. et al. A call for scientists to halt the spoiling of the night sky with artificial light and satellites. Nat Astron 7, 237–239 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01864-z

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