What percentage of Americans can't see the Milky Way?
What is this? The 2016 study found that in the large urban centers, viewing the Milky Way is virtually impossible with the naked eye, making it pretty much invisible to almost 80% of Americans.
In a paper published Friday in Science Advances, researchers reveal that 1 in 3 people worldwide are unable to see the Milky Way when they gaze at the heavens in their hometown. In addition, a whopping 83% of the world's population lives under light-polluted skies.
We, in our humble Solar System, are roughly 28,000 light years away from it. In short, this region is simply too far for us to see with the naked eye.
80 Percent of Americans Can't See the Milky Way Anymore. The Milky Way illuminates the sky over Dinosaur National Monument, which spreads across Colorado and Utah.
The United States is one of the best places to see the Milky Way in the world. Having more than 65 Dark Sky Parks across the country, the possibilities for spending a night under a dark starry sky are endless.
Our Milky Way galaxy is just one of the billions of galaxies in the universe. Within it, there are at least 100 billion stars, and on average, each star has at least one planet orbiting it. This means there are potentially thousands of planetary systems like our solar system within the galaxy!
Our view of the heavens isn't what it used to be. Nearly 4 out of every 5 people on Earth — including 99 percent of those living in the United States and Europe - now live under light-polluted skies, according to scientists who have created a state-of-the-art atlas of the problem across the globe.
Maps of artificial night sky brightness show that more than one-third of Earth's population cannot see the Milky Way from their homes due to light pollution. As viewed from Earth, the visible region of the Milky Way's galactic plane occupies an area of the sky that includes 30 constellations.
Overall, the Milky Way is no longer visible to more than one third of the world's population.
The technology required to travel between galaxies is far beyond humanity's present capabilities, and currently only the subject of speculation, hypothesis, and science fiction. However, theoretically speaking, there is nothing to conclusively indicate that intergalactic travel is impossible.
Is the Milky Way broken?
But now, astronomers have found something unusual — a "break" in the arm, slashing perpendicularly through the spiral like a splinter poking through a piece of wood. Spanning about 3,000 light-years, this stellar splinter makes up just a fraction of the Milky Way (which has a diameter of about 100,000 light-years).
In general, the best time to see the Milky Way in the Northern Hemisphere is from March to September, while the Milky way season goes from February to October. This region of our planet includes territories at very different latitudes, which is the main factor to consider when planning when to see the Milky Way.
Each month around the time of the new moon, Everglades National Park offers superbly dark conditions that are ideal for viewing the Milky Way. On a dark night and in a dark place within the park, look to the south to find the Milky Way.
Texas offers unique opportunities to view the night sky. From the Texas Hill Country to Big Bend National Park, the beauty of the Milky Way flows across the night sky. Best viewed away from the city lights, the wonder of our Universe comes alive in the deep dark night.
It's a sad truth, but according to a study done by Italian and American scientists, one-third of the world's population and 80% of Americans cannot see the Milky Way.
6) You can only see 0.000003% percent of it. When you got out on a dark night, you can see thousands of stars. But the Milky Way has two hundred billion stars in it. You're only seeing a tiny tiny fraction of the number of stars tooling around the galaxy.