The American's darkest town
Here in the desert, the Earth boils and stars fill the sky. By day, you can see plumes of geothermal steam rising in every direction, pouring from vents in the ground and disappearing into the crisp, dry air. At night, you can see distant galaxies with the naked eye, their light much older than our species. Five years ago, NASA launched a satellite that’s roughly the size of a minivan and that circles our planet 14 times a day. Its largest instrument collects information from across the electromagnetic spectrum over land, ice and ocean. Scientists analyzed its data and combined that with measurements taken on the ground to map our planet’s light pollution. Only a few small areas in the U.S. remain mostly untouched. “As you see, the largest dark area is in northwest Nevada. Maybe at the center of this area we can have the darkest places,” said Fabio Falchi, a researcher at the Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute and author of “ The World Atlas of Light Pollution ...
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