Passion of the People – 1.1.1

The Fascination of the Stars

Humans have been mesmerized by the stars since the beginning of their existence. This fascination is documented throughout history from simple drawings in the caves of the Stone Age like those of the Neanderthals to the first people who tried to understand the stars from a fact-based context like Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, and, leading to today’s research institutions such as the European Space Agency (ESA) or the US American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Since the beginning of human history the night sky has been admired. The stars in particular have been, and continue to be, an incomparable source of fascination. They have been many things: gods, fortune tellers, subjects of scientific exploration, religious symbols, and more still to come. Stars have been the source of myth, mystery, and legends and have influenced many aspects of life as we know it from religion to pop culture. They still are the origin of our calendar and basis for navigation.

For thousands of years the stars have been mankind’s companions. The stars in the night sky have been a motivation for discovering the universe, for space flights and last but not least science-fiction adventures reaching back to the 19^th century in literature.

The natural night sky was always interesting for astronomers and meanwhile it is also for ecologists as it is also important for fauna and flora. Migrating birds and insects orientate themselves towards the stars, the growth of plants depends on the change of night and day. Even the health of humans is influenced by light pollution, e. g. our day/night rhythm. Behind them are complex processes whose interaction has become increasingly clear through research, but much is still a mystery, which contributes undiminished to the fascination of the stars. It is no longer a matter of course that the natural night sky can be seen everywhere on Earth. This is why dark sky parks are so important, to help us preserve the fascination of the stars and to enable research to unravel as much of the complexities as possible. Meanwhile, Dark Sky Parks can be found nearly on all continents of the earth with people working there and visitors enjoying an extraordinary environment during the night.

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Passion of the People

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Images

A huge number of pictures illustrating the fascination of stars is available at Pixabay for free