How dark is your sky? How far do you have to travel to reach a dark sky?

How dark is your sky? How far do you have to travel to reach a dark sky?

Originally shared by Friends of NASA

The New World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness
How far are you from a naturally dark night sky? In increasing steps, this world map (medium | large) shows the effect of artificial night sky brightness on the visual appearance of the night sky. The brightness was modeled using high resolution satellite data and fit to thousands of night sky brightness measurements in recent work. Color-coded levels are compared to the natural sky brightness level for your location. For example, artificial sky brightness levels in yellow alter the natural appearance of the night sky. In red they hide the Milky Way in an artificial luminous fog. The results indicate that the historically common appearance of our galaxy at night is now lost for more than one-third of humanity. That includes 60% of Europeans and almost 80% of North Americans, along with inhabitants of other densely populated, light-polluted regions of planet Earth.

Image Credit & License: F. Falchi et al., Light Pollution Atlas, ISTIL
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/6/e1600377
ISTIL: www.istil.it/indexit.html
Release Date: June 30, 2016

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD) 
Commission for Dark Skies 
International Dark-Sky Association 

#NASA #Earth #Space #Satellite #Science #LightPollution #Stars #MilkyWay #Galaxy #Cosmos #Universe #Atlas #APoD