Outside Reading: Our Vanishing Night

For a long time, I have been left in awe from the night sky with all of its stars. While I was reading the National Geographic magazine, a picture caught my eye. The picture was of a natural rock bridge, with the midnight sky showing off all of its millions of stars. The first few pages of the article Our Vanishing Night had pictures of various night skies. Right after the picture of the beautiful night sky as mentioned above, there was a picture of Chicago in the middle of the night. With all of its lights illuminating the cloud and fog filled sky, it made me really appreciate the small amount of stars we have in Minnesota. The author, Verlyn Klinkenborg, talks about how we have changed ourselves, and brought this lack of nature upon ourselves. Klinkenborg writes, "If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars, we would go in darkness happily, the midnight would as visible to us as it is the the vast number of nocturnal species on this planet." This quote reminded me of something I learned about the human eye way back in elementary school. When dark your pupils grow smaller to let more light in, and when bright, they grow smaller to let less light in. If you are in the dark, then suddenly turn the lights on your eyes take a good 2 or 3 seconds to fully adjust to the light. This relates to the quote because the author is saying we have been living in light so much our eyes are used to it, and if we started living in the dark again, eventually our eyes would adjust. I found this interesting because of all the cool pictures along with my fascination with astronomy.