Given the harmful effects of light pollution, a pair of astronomers has coined a new term to help focus efforts to combat it. Their term, as reported in a brief paper in the preprint database arXiv and a letter to the journal Science, is “noctalgia.” In general, it means “sky grief,” and it captures the collective pain we are experiencing as we continue to lose access to the night sky.

  • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    In my parents farm the night sky is perfectly visible. They live far from any town and there are no lights you can’t just turn off so sometimes I just look at the sky when I’m visiting.

    Plenty of places like this still in my country thankfully.

    • negativeyoda@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve always lived in cities and didn’t see the milky way until I was in my 30s.

      Anyhow, I took my kid camping last weekend and she couldn’t believe how many stars there were. We were both enjoying it but then the string of SpaceX satellites went by and kind of ruined the moment

      • havokdj@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I laughed at that last part. I am sorry that happened to you but it is pretty funny.