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Reaching for Starry Nights

NASA
United States of America at night - a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012

Across the industrialized world, "Light Pollution," has become such a big concern that some countries now ask their citizens to take one day out of the year to focus on the problem.

Two Virginia researchers have decided to go one better.

They are constructing a week-long public event.

We talk with the organizers of this Starry Nights conference about their hopes for setting a new American trend.

Guests:
Paul Bogard, Ph.D. - Author of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light (Little, Brown. 2013).  Assistant Professor of English, James Madison University.  Co-organizer of the Starry Nights conference beginning March 24, 2014 in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Shanil Virani - Director of the J.C. Wells Planetarium and Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at James Madison University.  Co-organizer of the Starry Nights conference beginning March 24, 2014 in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Tom Graham was Senior Producer and host of WMRA's Virginia Insight from 2006 to 2015.