What are Its Effects?

Light pollution is an ever-present but eminently fixable problem around the globe.  It happens when people don’t use shielded lighting, overuse their lighting, and shine lights UP to the sky (thereby washing out the view of the stars). The nature of lighting is changing, and many places are making efforts to mitigate the overuse of lights. But, other changes are happening as well.

You’ve probably noticed that public lighting in some places is being replaced by bright LEDs. Not only can these be substantially brighter than sodium vapor and other outdoor lighting, but they can affect your health and the environment just as much (if not more so) than other kinds of lights. That has led the International Dark-Sky Association to update its Fixture Seal of Approval (FSA) that has been widely adapted by the lighting industry as an essential way to certify outdoor lighting. This is important, not just for stargazers, but for the population at large. Why so?

The FSA has, since its inception, helped many users of outdoor lights do the environmentally right thing when it comes to lighting their buildings and properties at night. They are finding that their costs forlighting (including electrical power) are substantially reduced while maintaining a safe level of lighting that doesn’t hurt the environment, trespass on neighbors, or shine up, uselessly lighting the sky.

Exposure to blue light at night affects plants and animals and has a hand in stirring up some chronic conditions in humans. In addition, the glare of blue-light-rich LEDs at night is almost blinding (something you may have noticed as you drive at night and see oncoming cars equipped with such lights). Many effects are still being studied. However,  it’s well known that staring at a blue light-rich screen at night (such as reading from your iPad before bed) can affect your melatonin levels and the amount of sleep you get. There are likely other health effects to consider, as well.

Continue reading Light at Night →

Our Fascination Dates Back through History

This Friday, November 28th, about 90,000 messages sent from the people of Earth will make their way to the planet Mars. They’re part of the “Beam Me to Mars” effort put together by Uwingu.com to celebrate the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Mariner 4 mission in 1964. This spacecraft was the first successful one to reach Mars safely and send back up-close and personal images of another planet.

The crowd of humans reaching out via radioed message to Mars on this anniversary is diverse and world-wide. It includes a number of well-known Mars enthusiasts and scientists, including actors Seth Green, Clare Grant, George Takei and his husband Brad Takei, authors Dava Sobel and Homer Hickam,  astronauts Chris Hadfield and Richard Garriott, former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, and many others, including me. I thought the idea was so compelling and profound that I had to participate the moment I heard about the project. The messages range from short greetings to space organization logos, videos, and sound recordings.

After the messages are beamed to Mars at a million bits per second shortly after 3 p.m. on Friday (transmitted by Universal Space Network), copies will also be sent to NASA headquarter, Congress, and the United Nations. They are the first messages sent intentionally by citizens of Earth, and they comprise an outlook of hope, friendliness, and outreach. My hope is that they somehow also reach the decision-makers in the halls of power, to show them that humanity’s future lies on not just one, but two planets.

The proceeds of “Beam Me to Mars” (raised by sales of the messages to the participants) will go to the Uwingu Fund, which help pay for grants to researchers and science educators. In these days of tough funding for science, efforts such as Uwingu help keep science moving forward, and the group has other projects (such as the “Name the Craters of Mars” effort) that help raise money for the betterment of science and science education.

Why did I send a message to Mars? I’ve been interested in Mars since I was a young child, and have written about it extensively over the years. I wrote a best-selling planetarium show/fulldome video about Mars that remains an audience favorite. When I was doing the research for that show, I found historical treatises about the Red Planet showing that many cultures on Earth, stretching back thousands of years, had an interest in this ruddy wanderer of the skies. In one paper, I found references to 27 different names for the planet from various cultures throughout time. Many refer to it in some form of a “war god” or an ominous omen in the sky.  Over time, that viewpoint changed, particularly as we began to explore it with telescopes from Earth and then with spacecraft.

Today, we know that Mars has no indigenous life of its own (or if it did, it’s now gone or hidden deep underground in the form of microbial life).  Yet, we still explore it. I would have loved to become a Mars explorer, but that doesn’t look to be in the cards just yet. So, I did the next best thing, I sent a message. (And, over the years, some portion of my taxes have gone to fund Mars exploration, something which I’m pleased to do.)

Why?  Why do we care about it? Why do we send orbiters and landers …. and messages?

Continue reading What is it about Mars? →