The sky as a collective resource and global commons
We give you a warm welcome to our fourth edition of Earth Week x Astrobites! This year, our theme focusses on humanity’s impact on the night sky. Everything you need to know about this year’s events, posts, and recordings can be found here. When posting on socials, please use the hashtag #EarthWeekxAstrobites2025!
As always, our goals are to uplift our speakers, foster community around climate advocacy, and center on doing this work from a place of hope. Thank you for joining us!
Are you taking pictures of the night sky? Have you captured some light pollution, satellites or similar in your photography efforts? Feel free to share it with us!
Event Program
Affecting Dark Sky Observing for both Amateurs and Professionals
With Mark Trueblood
Want a reminder? Register here!
Tuesday, April 22nd // 12:00 PM CDT // 7:00 PM CEST
Mark is one of the co-founders, together with his wife Pat, of the Winer Observatory and is its current director. As our guest speaker for this webinar, he will go in-depth on the long influence he has had on local policy in support of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO, the predecessor of NOIRLab) where he was a long-time employee, and on the founding of the Winer Observatory and its current trajectory.
Community Building in Dark Sky Initiatives
With Dr. Michelle Wooten
Want a reminder? Register here!
Wednesday, April 23nd // 12:00 PM CDT // 7:00 PM CEST
In this interactive webinar, we have Michelle Wooten as our guest speaker. As a co-founder and current lead of Starry Skies South, the US southeastern chapter of Dark Sky International where she is also part of the Technical committee, Michelle will share her long past and present experience in building Dark Sky communities and as well as her activities at changing local policies on improving night pollution.
Panel Disucssion:
Current hurdles and ways forward in night-sky pollution
with several expert panelists (listed below)
Want a reminder? Register here!
Thursday, April 24nd // 12:00 PM CDT // 7:00 PM CEST
Our sky is as much subject to the “tragedy of the commons” as our soil. Starting with light pollution, many an astronomy enthusiast has faced the same problem: instead of a clear view on the Milky Way, there’s nothing to see at night except for the spotlights of the neighbouring city. Many a late-night picture is ruined because of passing satellites or mega-constellations. It goes further: with the advent of large satellite constellations, not only ground-based astronomy is affected with increasingly busier skies, but launching new satellites and re-entry of old ones are increasingly straining the atmosphere.
There are also a multitude of solutions however: planned/capped city lighting, efficient multi-launching of satellites, controlled de-orbits, climate-friendly rocket propellants, …
In this panel discussion, we will dive into the problems and solutions to the current night-sky pollution in all its forms.
Features Panelists:
Dr. Christopher Kyba, Dr. Samantha Lawler, Dr. Jonathan McDowell and Dr. John Barentine
Posts
Here we will compile and update all the articles + event summaries from this year’s Earth Week event as the posts are published.
Planned Posts:
- Art gallery on astrophotography affected by night sky pollution: pulling pictures from all around, here we will present various examples of how would-be beautiful photography has been marred by light pollution and/or satellites passing by.
- How to make space flight sustainable?: with the new space race and more and more satellites being put into orbit, it’s high time to think about drastically lowering the carbon output of space flight.
Recordings
Session 1: Affecting Dark Sky Observing for both Amateurs and Professionals
Video and closed captions TBD
Session 2: Community Building in Dark Sky Initiatives
Video and closed captions TBD
Session 3: Panel Disucssion on the Current hurdles and ways forward in night-sky pollution
Video and closed captions TBD
Learn more about our Climate Change Series. We’d love to hear what you would like to see from this initiative – if you have ideas, please let us know in this google form. Find last year’s Earth Week page here.