Given the harmful effects of light pollution, a pair of astronomers has coined a new term to help focus efforts to combat it. Their term, as reported in a brief paper in the preprint database arXiv and a letter to the journal Science, is “noctalgia.” In general, it means “sky grief,” and it captures the collective pain we are experiencing as we continue to lose access to the night sky.

  • QHC@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    On top of that, I almost always carry a pistol with tritium sights or a light. So maybe that’s another reason I’m a bit more confident in the dark?

    Yeah, carrying a gun everywhere might have something to do with why you feel comfortable and other people don’t.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Meh, a gun is a rock-bottom, last resort thing. It’s not something where a sane person thinks, “I’m armed so I have nothing to fear.”

      Hard to explain to someone that doesn’t carry, but it makes one hyper-aware of their situation, because it’s a trump card you don’t want to play. Makes you more likely to avoid risk, if that makes sense.