In early 2021, just after the Perseverance Rover landed on Mars, a purported image of the Martian night sky went viral. In that image, above the sleek metal of a Mars rover, the clearly defined Milky Way cuts from horizon to horizon, crossing a sky filled with so many stars that there is no darkness.
Millions of people were excited to see the unblemished night sky from another planet, with no light pollution from cities, no flashing aircraft and no significant satellite presence.
Urban light pollution has vastly changed our relationship with the night sky: 80 percent of North Americans cannot see the Milky Way from where they live today. Electricity is so cheap and plentiful that we use it to shine lights into the sky for no reason other than laziness and poor planning.
The lack of darkness that many people now experience due to urban light pollution has been linked to many physical and mental health issues, both in humans and wildlife.
But we are now faced with a new source of light pollution: systems of tens of thousands of communications satellites. The construction of these so-called megaconstellations is already changing the night sky.
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