Looking at the skies in a new light

Nowhere in Switzerland is completely dark at night any more. Increasing light pollution is not just a problem for astronomers, however. It has serious consequences for human health and entire ecosystems.  When an earthquake knocked out the power in Los Angeles in 1994, many anxious residents called local emergency centres to report seeing a strange “giant, silvery cloud” in the sky. What they were really seeing – for the first time – was the Milky Way, long obliterated by a halo of light arching over the city. The situation is not so different in Switzerland.  “When I was a child [in the 1970s], I could look into the sky in town and see the galaxy of Andromeda. Today that’s impossible. The overall amount of light has increased so much that you wouldn’t see it in an average city or not far into the countryside,” Lukas Schuler, president of Dark-Sky Switzerland, told swissinfo.ch.  swissinfo.ch recently bumped into Schuler – it was dark – at the 27th Star Party, an ...