The number of stars that people can see with the naked eye in the night sky has dropped dramatically over the past ten years.. And the reason for this lies in the artificial lighting, the brightness of which has been growing since 2011, according to the BBC..

A group of amateur astronomers and citizen scientists spent 12 years conducting a study in which they counted the stars available to the observer. In addition, changes in the visibility of stars were also reported by people who sent data to the Globe at Night project.. And this change was equivalent to almost 10% annual increase in the brightness of the sky..

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According to scientists, this means that a child born in a region where 250 stars can be seen, in 18 years will be able to see only 100.

“When looking at images and videos of the Earth taken by the International Space Station at night, people tend to be struck by the ‘beauty’ of city lights, as if they were Christmas tree lights.. They don't understand that these are images of pollution. It's like admiring the beauty of the rainbow colors that gasoline in water produces and not realizing it's chemical pollution,"

Christopher Kiba of the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam said he was hoping to see some signs of a decrease in light pollution in recent times.. Cities and towns, especially in developed countries, are replacing old street lights with modern LED lights that distribute light more efficiently and point it downwards..

“We hoped that if the light was better directed, the situation would improve.. But there are so many types of lighting - street lights, decorative, advertising. So all of these things combined - and perhaps more general lighting - degrade the brightness of the sky,"

The European Space Agency conducted a study in 2022 in which it found that the relatively low cost of LED lamps leads to more intensive use of them, calling it the “lighting paradox”.

“While the LED lighting revolution promised to reduce energy consumption and improve a person’s ability to see at night, overall [light pollution] has increased. Paradoxically, the cheaper and better the lighting, the greater the dependence of society on light,” the agency said..