Hello Darkness, my old friend... Well, maybe. In most places, there's so little real darkness folks have forgotten what it's like. Whole generations are growing up having never seen the Milky Way. Go ahead, take a survey of your friends, your kids, your mom, the man-on-the-street. Chances are they wouldn't know their home galaxy from a chocolate bar. Light pollution, as a result of urban growth, is destroying our view of the Universe. But now there's a move afoot to change all this. Astronomers everywhere are affected and, short of shooting out the streetlamps, they're beginning to mobilize. Dave Crawford, an astronomer at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, gives the problem perspective: "I see this as an environmental issue, just like saving grizzly bears or preventing forest fires," Crawford says. "Trying to observe the stars through the glow of urban haze is like taking a walk in the Grand Canyon and being surrounded by trash." The solution to the problem, of course, is just to get people to be sensitive to it. That's all. (Nobody's for light pollution after all -not even the lighting industry). Enter the International Dark-Sky Association, organized this year to try to get folks to think about lighting. The IDA stresses that astronomers aren't against lighting - they're for good lighting. What's the difference between low pressure and high pressure sodium lamps? Just how bad are mercury vapor lights? What's a full cut-off fixture? How do folks in Tucson, Arizona like the fact that their city passed an ordinance that all outdoor advertising signs have to be off by 11 p.m.? Does it work? (You bet!) To join the folks of the International Dark-Sky Association, you can write to Dave (who's a wealth of lighting fun facts and figures) at his Observatory : Dr. Dave Crawford Kitt Peak National Observatory PO Box 26732 Tucson, AZ 85726 To find out more about the entire subject, you can join a group of international astronomers at a special series of lectures and discussions being held here in Washington, DC, August 13-16. For a brochure, write to Dr. Tomas Gergely, National Science Foundation, Dept. of Astronomy, 1800 G St., NW, Washington, DC 20550, or to me, care of this newsletter. Let's mobilize!! Destination: Mars! "Light winds from the East in the late afternoon, changing to light winds from the Southeast after midnight. Maximum winds15 m.p.h. Overnight low -122 degreesF. Daytime high -22 degreesF. Pressure steady at 7.7 mb." First weather report from Mars, July 20, 1976. So went the day for the Viking 1 Lander. It was typical weather for the planet Mars. We haven't been back to check the weather (or anything else for that matter) since, but that will soon change when the Soviet Union launches, on July 7th and 12th, its two Phobos spacecraft. Phobos 1 & 2 will reach the red planet in January 1989, and place landers on the moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos. Mars, since ancient times, has always been the planet that most excites the human imagination. In our minds we've populated Mars a thousand times, and with a myriad of creatures (notably Barsoomians, Thoats, and the like). In the year 1900 a French woman, Madame Goguet, offered 100,000 gold francs to the first human who sucessfully communicated with intelligence from another planet, excluding the planet Mars. Apparently, that would have been too easy. (Needless to say, nobody won the prize and French inflation eventually killed it.) In reality, we've visited Mars several times (including flyby and orbiter missions). The USSR has sent 15 missions, and we have sent 8, but of those 23 missions, only 7 were fully successful, most notably the USA's Viking 1 & 2 missions, which placed landers on the surface of the planet. The Soviets were plagued with bad luck on their Mars missions, and never did, despite many attempts, land successfully on Mars. Hopes are high for the Phobos 1 & 2 spacecraft, a mission which includes orbiting Mars itself, hovering very close to the surface of Phobos, and dropping two types of landers on Phobos, and possibly Deimos, too. Twelve countries are taking part in the Soviet Mars mission, but not the USA. Soviet officials have agreed, however, to place an aluminum plaque on one of the landers commemorating the discovery of Phobos by the U.S. Naval Observatory, promising that this memento would remain on Mars forever. "We will be happy to install this plaque on the lander," said Soviet astronomer Dr. Alexander Zakharov at a formal ceremony at the Naval Observatory on April 30th, "Unfortunately, it is the only piece of American hardware [on this mission]." Well, score one! for the Naval Observatory. This news release may be reproduced with credit, please, to the U.S. Naval Observatory. BY: Gail S. Cleere 202/653-1541 NAVOBSY WASH This news release may be reproduced, with credit please, to the U.S. Naval Observatory.