I see more stars online than in the sky ✨ - by Adam Aleksic

At some point in the last century, we collectively began looking at more representations of stars than stars themselves. The representations have always been there—as early as 40,000 years ago, Paleolithic people were thought to leave sophisticated star charts on cave walls,1 and since then we’ve used them in our flags, emblems, and home decor alike—but most of these depictions were made at a time when the full Milky Way was completely visible to the average observer. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, more and more stars have been made invisible through light pollution, changing our relationship with “stars” as a concept. Today, I see dozens of star emojis every day on the internet, but only a handful of real stars when I remember to look. 🤩⭐️🌟💫 This is insane when you consider how important stars were to people in the past. Apart from navigation and timekeeping, the night sky was how they constructed their worldviews. An ancient Roman could look up, without any light pollut

At some point in the last century, we collectively began looking at more representations of stars than stars themselves. The representations have always been there—as early as 40,000 years ago, Paleolithic people were thought to leave sophisticated star charts on cave walls,1 and since then we’ve used them in our flags, emblems, and home decor alike—but most of these depictions were made at a time when the full Milky Way was completely visible to the average observer. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, more and more stars have been made invisible through light pollution, changing our re