LED’s creating light pollution

LED’s creating light pollution

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LED bulbs are often acclaimed for the energy savings they deliver, even more so now at a time which has seen the previously prohibitive prize of LED bulbs fall to more affordable prices.

Not surprisingly, many cities and towns have therefore chosen to install these types of bulbs for public lighting, in the expectation of saving a lot of money for their communities over the coming years.

However, this policy  has also had unforeseen consequences, particularly in terms of light pollution. A scientific team from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, via a project called “Cities at Night”, had decided to create a photo gallery of various cities taken from the International Space Station.

The results obtained from the project are both impressive and slightly shocking – as LED bulbs are much more powerful than traditional bulbs, cities are much more brightly lit than in the past, which has proved somewhat discouraging for amateur astronomers. The evidence of this can be seen in the team’s video below: