Beauty of the Night Sky: Stars Could Become Invisible In 20 Years Due To This Reason

Scientists have warned that human's ability to see the stars in the night sky could vanish in just 20 years because of light pollution.

Scientists observed that the increasing light pollution is now brightening up the night sky at a rate of around 10 per cent per year.

"The night sky is part of our environment and it would be a major deprivation if the next generation never got to see it, just as it would be if they never saw a bird's nest," Martin Rees, the British astronomer royal, told The Guardian.

"You don't need to be an astronomer to care about this. I am not an ornithologist but if there were no songbirds in my garden, I'd feel impoverished," he added.

Christopher Kyba, of the German Centre for Geosciences, stated that a child who is born in a place where 250 stars are currently visible in the night sky would be able to see only 100 by the time they reach the age of 18.

"A couple of generations ago, people would have been confronted regularly with this glittering vision of the cosmos - but what was formerly universal is now extremely rare. Only the world's richest people, and some of the poorest, experience that anymore. For everybody else, it's more or less gone," Kyba added.

Though light pollution has been a persistent issue for half a century, the latest changes can be reportedly traced to the increased use of light-emitting diodes (LED) and other forms of intense night-time lighting.

Kyba, further argued that the introduction of some changes to lightning can make a considerable improvement.

"Steps like shielding outdoor lights and pointing them downwards, limiting the brightness of lights, and ensuring that they are predominantly blue-white but have red and orange components," he said.

Other scientists have claimed that the bluish emissions of LEDs entirely lack any red or near-infra-red light.

"We are becoming starved of red and infra-red light and that has serious implications," stated Professor Robert Fosbury of the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London (UCL).

"When reddish light shines on our bodies, it stimulates mechanisms including those that break down high levels of sugar in the blood or boost melatonin production. Since the introduction of fluorescent lighting and later LEDs, that part of the spectrum has been removed from artificial light and I think it is playing a part in the waves of obesity and rises in diabetes cases we see today," he explained.