NASA data showing light pollution increasing over time. Humans have been observing the night sky since the ancient days of Mesopotamia and Babylon, but we’re increasingly getting in our own way. It’s not just important to astronomers, but essential to astrophotography, too. Despite this, a study in Nature finds that the sky is getting brighter and brighter. Per a report in USA Today , researchers from the University of Connecticut found that between 2014 and 2022, artificial light has brightened 16%. The team used satellite data from NASA for the paper. The United States leads the way as the most luminous country, followed by other industrial titans like China, Canada, India, and Brazil. “For decades, we’ve held a simplified view that the Earth at night is just getting steadily brighter as human population and economies grow,” says Zhe Zhu, the author or the study and director of the University of Connecticut’s Global Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory.…