Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 19, 1991 TAG: 9102190242
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short
The glare from street lights, sports fields and other sources already has erased the heavens from the nighttime view in many American cities, said David Crawford, an astronomer at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.
"The spectacular view of the night sky that our ancestors had above them on clear dark nights no longer exists," he said.
Paul Vanden Bout of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory said radio astronomers, too, are being hampered by the proliferation of gadgetry emitting radio signals that overpower the faint pulses from distant stars.
"Modern society carries with it an electronic buzz," from such things as electric motors, portable telephones, garage door openers, welding machines and microwave ovens, he noted.
Andrea Dupree of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said that light pollution similarly, overpowers the faint light from very distant stars. Most of the light pollution is a result of wasted illumination, mostly from street lights that shine into the sky almost as much as they shine on the ground.
Vanden Bout said that the worse problem for radio astronomers comes from navigation satellites that constantly beep out information for ships and airplanes. Another problem is telephones on airplanes, he added.
by CNB