by A star-filled night sky at the Karagol geosite camp of Isik Mountain in the Kizilcahamam district of Ankara, Turkey, on October 14, 2023. Credit: Ahmet Okur—Anadolu/Getty Images
Yo I once met a physics graduate student at a cosmology school (I’ll call him Max) who, until he was 20, had believed that stars could only be seen with a telescope. Max had grown up in New York City, where the twilight of artificially lit nights dissolved the sky. When he discovered the “permanent presence of the sublime,” as poet Ralph Waldo Emerson described it in his 1836 essay “Nature,” waiting patiently on a clear, dark night, he was mesmerized.
What do we lose when our connection to our cosmic environment is broken?
The night sky is humanity’s only truly global commons, shared by all of us across civilizations and millennia. However, today most of us live in cities, where increasing light pollution compromises our view of the stars. Worse still, a new type of threat is rapidly encroaching: Thousands of low-Earth orbit satellites have been launched over the past five years to provide global Internet connectivity, and they appear as fast-moving dots in the starry sky. According to current trends, in 2030 artificial satellites will outnumber real stars and no corner of the planet will be safe: the starry messengers left aside by instant messaging.
Losing the stars would be separating us from our past and perhaps threatening our future. Throughout millennia, the vision of the heavens subtly and silently guided the steps of humanity: it influenced religion and spirituality, inspired great works of art, allowed navigation on the open sea, which Polynesian masters achieved thousands of years ago. before Western sailors, and without the aid of any chart or instrument. Indeed, astronomy is the midwife of science: it is the study of the movement of celestial bodies that ushered in the Scientific Revolution in the 17th century and, consequently, the advanced technology on which our lives depend today. , from electronic devices that depend on electromagnetism to airplanes based on aerodynamics. It also led to sociology and experimental psychology, when the Swiss astronomer Adolph Hirsch realized in 1864 that to time the passing of stars to the strict standards of his fellow clockmakers it was necessary to understand his own reaction time. . He even paved the way for artificial intelligence by demonstrating, for the first time, the power of data-driven prediction with the discovery of the asteroid Ceres in 1802, not to mention the names and order of the days of the week (a legacy of! astrology!), the star-based rating system we use everywhere online, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
There are signs that our neck-craning amazement has been with us all along. For example, decorated prehistoric caves in Dordogne, France, are preferentially oriented toward the rising and setting sun on the solstices. The Pleiades, a stunning blue star cluster near Taurus, have been universally described as “seven sisters” (or seven women), even though only six have been visible to the naked eye throughout recorded history. The myth of how the missing Pleiad became lost, pursued by a powerful hunter, is strikingly similar between the ancient Greeks and the first Australian people, two cultures that had no contact since sapiens arrived in Australia 50 thousand years ago. But 100 thousand years ago, the seventh sister would have been easily visible to our ancestors. Identical myths may therefore have a common origin, dating back to before humans left their cradle.
Read more: The latest image from the Webb telescope reveals the birth of very young stars
From the time Homo Sapiens emerged from the plains of Africa, paying close attention to the stars and the phases of the Moon helped our ancestors predict food availability, stalk prey at full moon, and travel long distances. distances. When Earth’s climate underwent a period of rapid change 45,000 years ago, the slightest advantage in locating resources and shelter would have made the difference between survival and extinction—the ultimate price paid by our less star-savvy cousins. , the Neanderthals. Cooperation and knowledge sharing between bands was likely key to our ancestors’ ability to adapt to changing conditions. And it was thanks to the compass of the stars and the calendar of the lunar phases that they knew where and when to meet.
We certainly know that the lunar cycle has governed calendars (and therefore the economy) since Akkadian times, more than 5,000 years ago, and tracking the phase of the moon as a marker of their fertility cycle made women They were not only the first female astronomers, but also the first female astronomers. Probably also the first mathematicians. The appearance of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, and its retinue of stars led the Egyptians to invent the 24-hour timekeeping system that is still used today. Even in our technological age, distant galaxies are needed to keep atomic clocks synchronized with the slowing of Earth’s rotation. GPS would be hopelessly inaccurate without corrections due to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, first tested in 1919 by observing the change in the position of stars during a total eclipse. Deep down, we are still guided by the stars.
Just as the stars helped Sapiens overcome the climate challenges that doomed Neanderthals so long ago, today they can once again show us the way forward, as we face the combined deadly dangers of anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss. The “overview effect” describes the feeling of awe and humility that comes over astronauts when they look at our bright blue marble floating in the darkness of space. As we look up at night and contemplate the remote, unattainable suns scattered in the infinite, inhospitable darkness, we can all experience a “reverse overview effect”: the realization that our shared cosmic home is irreplaceable and the need to become best administrators of it. and our destiny.
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