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What animals see in the stars, and what they stand to lose
- flerchin 5y agoAnimals do just fine on cloudy nights without stars.
- gryfft 5y agoPlants do just fine on sunny days without rain. Can that be extrapolated to mean that the permanent cessation of all rain would not affect plants?
- neolog 5y agoIt's not even just the elimination of stars, but their replacement by city lights that actually mislead animals about where the stars/moon are.
- vnchr 5y agoExcuse you, this thread is for criticism of satellites and modern civilization.
- sitkack 5y agoBeing in a place where you can see the structure of the Milky Way very much feels like one is part of the Universe. There is stuff out there, it has structure, color and form. When the stars disappear, so does our sense of place. There is so much we don't know, and so much of what we do as humans is arbitrage to trade something away from someone before they know what they have. Or to sell something only accounting for one dimension of value or worth.
- dmosley 5y agoI agree wholly with this. Living in Southern NM we have a lot of stars. Just short drives and we can see the actual Milky Way band. I've always been saddened when I think of people who live in large cities and don't get to regularly see these things. Then, the first time I spotted Saturn and Jupiter with my telescope in my driveway I was struck with fresh awe. I had seen them before, in larger telescopes and higher resolution, but to track it with your own, to see them and try to comprehend how big they are in order order to be seen from so far away... I still get chills.
- morpheos137 5y agoI don't get how starlink can be cheaper than just putting transmitters on existing radio masts.
- ska 5y agoDoesn't really matter if it's cheaper if there are enough barriers to scaling on masts (e.g. who owns the rights to each one?). It's plausible that would be a very different company in basically every way that matters. Sometimes it's not about what's cheaper, so much as what's you have a method to do at all.
- Jtsummers 5y agoLine of sight is a major issue and getting masts within line of sight of all customers Starlink is targeting would be very expensive. Not just masts, but all the new fiber to connect them.
- morpheos137 5y agoseems like Verizon does a pretty good job.
- Jtsummers 5y agoLOS is still an issue for them and always will be. You can't ignore physics. Curvature of the Earth, buildings, mountains, hills, valleys, canyons. The way that radio waves actually move around and through an area. You can only get a tower to see so far. https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/ https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/ - that's their coverage map Note that there are still a lot of uncovered areas. The cost of getting towers into those areas and providing full coverage is massive. Remember, as I said in my previous comment, it's also not just towers and antenna. You need fiber running to every single one of them.
- m4rtink 5y agoMany wireless base stations are interconnected via microwave point to point links.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoWolves Howell at the moon. Take a dog hiking in the mountains, and see it just stop and stare at the surroundings.
- _spduchamp 5y agoSeveral years ago while camping up north, I swam in a lake in the middle of a perfectly clear night and could see the Milky Way like I had never seen before. With stars all around in my visual periphery, and being weightless in a star lit lake, I had the sensation of not looking up at the "dome" of stars, but standing affixed against a watery wall looking out, over, and into the depths of space in front of me. It was like watching out into space from a balcony. It was a new perspective for me and I wondered if whales ever see the night sky like that.
- gerbilly 5y agoThere is a scene in the film « Immortal Beloved » where a young Beethoven has a similar experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59hhDE9ObxY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59hhDE9ObxY
- ridiculous_fish 5y agoYour story reminded me of this comic, about looking out at the stars. http://www.electricsheepcomix.com/rave/ http://www.electricsheepcomix.com/rave/
- echelon 5y agoThat hit in the feels. Thanks for sharing.
- BigHatLogan 5y agoFantastic! The sense of dizziness--you don't expect that when you see the night sky but it's a very real feeling.
- BigHatLogan 5y agoThanks for sharing. Your comment reminded me of a similar experience I had almost eight years ago. I went camping in the desert with a few friends of mine, and in the evening we slept inside these caves that looked out into sky instead of into the horizon--as in the cave entrance was vertical instead of horizontal. In the evening, from inside the caves, I laid down and looked up and felt a sensation like the one you're describing--"weightless" is definitely the right word. It felt like I was looking into infinity, a literal ocean of stars. The cave was completely pitch black except for the opening that looked out into the sky. I don't have the right words to describe it, but I felt like I was almost pleasantly "falling" into that opening and out onto the star field, despite literally laying in the dirt in the middle of cave in the middle of nowhere. I quite literally am not smart enough to conjure up the right words for how I felt--and still feel about, all those years later--but I felt this odd comforting sensation that the universe is much larger than me and here I was just sitting in its cradle.
- lalos 5y agoSemi-related: Most humans stopped valuing the stars after mechanical clocks were invented. That led us to follow the abstract time rather than the sun, seasons and therefore the stars. That combined with cities with light pollution, makes you realize we're one of the first batches of humans with almost no contact with the stars.
- lwigo 5y agoSailors still rely(ied) on stars even with chronometers but I get the point you're making. "Head west for 8 weeks" wasn't quite enough.
- reaperducer 5y agoI started re-valuing the stars maybe ten years ago, when I got in the habit of checking the mailbox at night when my wife got home from work. Even though I lived in one of the worst light-polluted cities in the region, I found that if I stood in the right place, so that I didn't have a streetlight in my face — like under an eave — and I just waited, my eyes would get used to the dark and I could see maybe 10 or 15 stars. Enough to make it interesting. All it takes is a little patience. Eventually, I started going out and getting the mail before she came home so I'd have more star time, and it wasn't too long before some of them became familiar friends, and I noticed how others changed position from week to week. It doesn't take much effort to appreciate the stars. But it's more effort than many people are willing to expend.
- vagrantJin 5y ago10 or 15 stars. This is the saddest thing on this thread.
- neonate 5y agohttps://archive.is/2zW2N https://archive.is/2zW2N
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- vmception 5y agoToo bad they can't get funding for these kind of experiments. A two seal study with no input on how the experiment will be structured is pretty weak. Two seals in a 15 foot aquarium with a planetarium for a ceiling? Humans get larger planetariums and who knows how I choose which chair to walk toward.
- jessaustin 5y agoCity lights are something of an unavoidable problem, but the truly unforgivable scourge is all the "security" lights that electric companies promote in order to burn useless capacity in rural areas. First, the idea that anyone's security is improved by helpfully illuminating unfamiliar surroundings for intruders is risible. I can walk from one end of my farm to the other in pitch-black starless night without stumbling, because I am familiar with my own property. Someone who hasn't been there before will have to bring a light, which will betray their intrusion. (Which, whatever. If they want to take a walk at night and don't damage anything I don't really care.) Even worse is how these "security" lights destroy one's night sight from long distance. If I'm in sight of one of my dumbass neighbors' houses, I have to be careful not to look anywhere near them, because these devices shine their awful-colored rays in all directions. I'm sure this is even more of a burden for nocturnal animals. I know it is for my livestock. These lights operate all night long, every night. Those who consent to their installation are typically inside their houses, watching TV or sleeping. These lights' only function is to illuminate the front lawn for a couple of seconds a few times each evening when someone wonders "is the security light still on?" Anyone who needs actual illumination outside uses flashlights, headlights, etc. when they actually need the illumination.
- aaron695 5y agoA beetles eye cannot see a star as mentioned. The moon will also stop them seeing the Milky Way. At best, they use the Milky Way on moonless, low cloud nights, the time of year when it's observable. As a human it's incredibly interesting to know if beetles actually use the Milky Way. For AI research it is also relevant. But we are sitting so close to stupid, there needs more proof. It does mean the proof matters. For the occasions a beetle could see the Milky Way did it's little brain come with pre-existing programming? or can store the Milky Way's image?. Which of the two is it, or is it something else? Unfortunately logic is it's just not true, or a boring it stores any old big blob. It would be interesting from a vision perspective, they don't need lidar or night vision better than blobs. Moonlit clouds makes far more sense, and the anti-fighting theory still works for a somewhat consistent moving grid of clouds. Maybe there are no clouds where they are.
- analognoise 5y agoI think it's funny humanity decided even seeing stars is less important than high speed internet. Like we're supposed to have hope for the future, but shit like this makes that increasingly difficult.
- bamboozled 5y agoI think a company decided it was more important, not people.