Light pollution

I spent last week backpacking in the wilderness of Yosemite and one of my favorite things was falling asleep under the stars each night because here in LA, planes are about the only lights visible in the night sky. So I was saddened, but not surprised, to read in The New Yorker that truly dark skies are slowly disappearing from the American landscape due to air and light pollution. In fact, even the darkest skies in this country aren't as dark as skies all over the world were in Galileo's time. From the article:

In Galileo’s time people assume that the Milky Way must be some kind of continuous substance. It truly resembled a streak of spilled liquid—our word “galaxy” comes from the Greek for milk—and it was so bright that it cast shadows on the ground (as did Jupiter an Venus).

Having grown up in South Dakota, I've definitely seen a milky-looking Milky Way, but I've never seen it bright enough that it could have cast shadows. How cool would that be? And check out the photo of the Milky Way on The New Yorker site to see how beautiful the Milky Way looks, if only we could see it.