Telescope not just a learning tool, but a symbol for preserving dark skies

Our editor was driving east on his way to dinner the night of Feb. 5, when he saw something that made him stop and look up at the night sky: A bright yellow object was slicing through the upper atmosphere, moving much more slowly than a shooting star darts across outer space, before it exploded somewhere beyond the mountains. At the advice of this newspaper’s astronomy columnist, Gary Zientara, he reported it to the American Meteor Society, and over the next few days, so did seven others: six in New Mexico and one in Monahans, Texas, in the remote sandy outskirts of Odessa.

It’s one of the great marvels of living in one of the few remaining sparsely populated areas of the West that we get to look up at the night sky and see events like this. Even on an average night, Taos County residents have the chance to see meteors and stare into the starry depths of galaxies millions of light years away. None of us have an excuse to be bored, really, at least not after the Sun sets.

This increasingly rare view of outer space is why UNM–Taos’ recent project to develop a new, public observatory is so exciting to see on the horizon. Once built, it has the potential to inspire local kids to become astronomers and perhaps engineers, who will work on the bleeding edge of a new generation of space science and exploration. And our local astronomers are right to already be tying the telescope project to the related mission of preserving the dark skies here that inspired it.

Coincidentally, The New York Times published a story this week about a zoologist who has taken up the same mission at a global scale. In his new book, “The Darkness Manifesto,” Johan Eklöf notes the many ways in which increasing light pollution from artificial lighting is negatively impacting the health of wildlife, as well as humans. The Times article references a study published this year in the journal Science, which found that between 2011 and 2022 “the average night sky got brighter by 9.6% per year …” A second study published in Science in 2016 found that a third of all human beings in the world can’t see the Milky Way at night, including about half of Americans.

Fortunately, the state of New Mexico, Taos County and the Town of Taos all have laws on the books to regulate artificial lighting already, and it behooves us all to ensure they remain in place as the state’s population and municipalities grow.

New Mexico enacted the Night Sky Protection Act in 1999, not only to preserve celestial views but also as a method of reducing the state’s energy consumption. That same year, the Town of Taos adopted its own version of the act. In 2006, so did Taos County. While some local residents have made the case that any time a crime is committed after dark, it serves as evidence of why these restrictions are dangerous, studies on the subject have shown that blasting your yard (and your neighbors) with flood lights from your driveway does little, if anything, to deter crime. In fact, if your eyes are adjusted to a bright artificial light, it might only serve to blind you from seeing a threat lurking in the shadows.

Instead, the science shows that bright artificial lighting disrupts migratory patterns of animals, like sea turtles, wipes out beneficial insects and interferes with the sleep patterns of both nocturnal and diurnal creatures, including humans.

The night sky has been fascinating to humans ever since we developed the eyes to see it. Our ancestors created myths and entire religions based upon it. Explorers and Native peoples relied upon the stars to chart their way.

In Taos, we can still see it in all its amazing detail, so let’s do everything we can to keep it that way.