Source: Light Pollution Map
Curious about light pollution distribution? Here’s a link for an interactive map. Here’s an FAQ. It handles multiple datasets and even user input data, but I’ve not been able to find much other information on it.
Source: You Can See The Milky Way
Here’s another one. This one features an alternative map and a satellite view. And I don’t have an explanation for some of the funky state names.
This Scientific American video covers light pollution’s effects in 60 seconds. It points out something I had not thought about: light pollution can effect nocturnal animals, so light pollution is an ecological problem and therefore elevated from mere annoyance for astronomers to another serious problem to be dealt with on a national level.
It would be interesting, at the next Minnesota governor’s race debate, to bring a snapshot of one of these maps centered on the Twin Cities and ask them how they intend to remove that blot of light from the map? I wonder if we’d just get blank looks, or if they’d question the need.
