'Noctalgia' is a feature of the modern age.

Given the harmful effects of light pollution, a pair of astronomers has coined a new term to help focus efforts to combat it. Their term, as reported in a brief paper in the preprint database arXiv and a letter to the journal Science, is “noctalgia.” In general, it means “sky grief,” and it captures the collective pain we are experiencing as we continue to lose access to the night sky.

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    81·
    1 year ago

    Be nice if everyone just used infrared and/or motion detection. There’s no reason to have outdoor lights on all night.

    • oKtosiTe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      This. I’m visually impaired and actually need a lot of light to operate normally.

      At one point in my life I lived in a large building where all the hallways were operated by infrared sensors. It was honestly pretty cool to just walk around and get the light I needed without pressing any buttons.

      I’ve often thought about how neat it would be if we could do same for outdoor spaces.