Physics professor receives grant to study light pollution with drones
When was the last time you saw the Milky Way? Many decades ago, the vast trail of stars, planets, and nebulae making up our galaxy could be seen from almost anywhere,
Physics professor receives grant to study light pollution with drones
When was the last time you saw the Milky Way? Many decades ago, the vast trail of stars, planets, and nebulae making up our galaxy could be seen from almost anywhere, even urban centers. But nowadays, this view of the night sky is increasingly uncommon: for 80 percent of Americans, the Milky Way is almost totally obscured.
Light pollution, the cumulative glow emitted by street lamps, house lights, and commercial installations, has made the sky almost opaque. Over the past 20 years, researchers, state agencies, and non-profit organizations have been working to combat this problem in a number of ways, from mapping the glow emitted by man-made light across the globe, to crafting policy initiatives that would change the streetlamp grid of whole cities. Now, thanks to a grant from the Metro21 Smart Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon, a new team of researchers is bringing the issue of light pollution home to Pittsburgh.
Led by Diane Turnshek, a professor of experimental physics at CMU, and Stephen Quick, a professor in the School of Architecture, a team of about 15 researchers, students, and night sky enthusiasts are hoping to create a comprehensive map of Pittsburgh’s light emissions using drones. Pilots would use a combination of quadcopters (drones with 4 propellers) and fixed wing drones (similar to tiny planes) to capture data-rich images of the night sky all over Pittsburgh. These images would contain data not just on how much light is being emitted, but where that light is coming from and what exactly is producing it.
In recent years, researchers have hoped to highlight the negative effects of light pollution, not just on our view of the night sky, but on the entire ecosystem. But studying these effects on a more intimate level is difficult without a detailed map. Turnshek hopes that the information provided by this project will assist scientists in figuring out the more granular effects of light pollution, and eventually even turn Pittsburgh into a hub for exactly that kind of research.
“We have no idea how we’re changing things in the nighttime