Light Pollution: The Stars Have Vanished But We Can Bring Them Back

Where Did All the Stars Go?

Why Can’t We See the Night Sky Anymore?

When was the last time you looked up at the night sky and saw more than one star? If you're like most of us growing up in cities, the answer is probably never.

We hear about constellations in textbooks. We see pictures of galaxies on Instagram. We watch movies where people gaze at the stars and feel connected to something bigger. But in real life? All we get is a dull, hazy sky—and maybe a plane pretending to be a star if we’re lucky.

And yet, somehow, we’ve accepted this.

We don’t talk about it. We don’t question it. We just… move on.

But I want to ask:

How are kids supposed to care about space if they’ve never really seen the stars?

When We Steal the Sky from Children

I had a space phase when I was younger. Maybe we all did. You know the kind—devouring books on black holes, sticking glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling, daydreaming about floating in zero gravity.

But here’s the thing. It’s really hard to fall in love with something that feels imaginary.

When you live in a place where the sky is always the same sad shade of grey-orange, space becomes this distant idea. Not something you experience, but something you read about. It’s not magical anymore. It’s just science fiction.

And eventually, that kills the curiosity. The same way asking questions and getting shut down over and over makes you stop asking.

The same way trying to dream in a world that doesn’t let you look up slowly chips away at your imagination.

We’re raising a generation of kids who have never seen the Milky Way. That should scare us.

Light Pollution Is Real—And Fixable

Here’s what’s crazy. The sky isn’t empty. The stars are still out there. We’ve just covered them up.

With streetlights that never turn off. With buildings that shine like they’re trying to outdo the sun. With cities so obsessed with brightness that we’ve forgotten how to be still in the dark.

This isn’t some massive unsolvable crisis. Light pollution is one of the only environmental problems we actually know how to fix.

All it takes is intentional lighting—warmer bulbs, shielded fixtures, lights that face downward instead of into the sky. Cities around the world are already doing it. We just… haven’t made it a priority.

Because it doesn’t feel urgent, right? It’s not flooding our homes or killing forests. But what it’s doing is quieter, and maybe even sadder:

It’s stealing our wonder.

It’s making kids forget to be curious.

And it’s convincing all of us that the night sky just isn’t ours anymore.

A Rooftop in Kanpur

In 2023, I was in Kanpur with my mausi, just sitting on a rooftop, talking about everything and nothing. And suddenly, I looked up.

There they were. Stars. Real stars.

Not one, not three—dozens. For the first time in my life, I saw a sky that looked like the ones in books. A sky that breathed. A sky that felt like it belonged to me.

Kanpur is a city. It’s not in the middle of nowhere. So if I could see that many stars there, what does that say about what the rest of us are missing?

That night made me angry. Because it wasn’t fair. It still isn’t.

We Deserve to Look Up

Every kid deserves to see the sky.

Not just on camping trips or once-in-a-lifetime vacations. Not just in pictures or poems. But in real life. From their own rooftops. On their way home from school. While brushing their teeth and looking out the window.

Because the stars aren’t just pretty. They remind us how small we are. And how big we could be. They give us perspective. They let us dream.

If we can’t see the sky, how are we supposed to believe there’s something beyond our school stress and college apps and city traffic?

If we never feel small, how are we supposed to understand how massive and beautiful the world really is?

We Can Bring the Stars Back

This isn’t just about space. It’s about what kind of world we want to live in.

A world where kids stop asking big questions because they think the answers don’t matter.

A world where we’ve blocked out the stars with concrete and LED billboards.

Or a world where we choose to pause. To dim the lights. To make space for wonder again.

And as a future UN Secretary-General (because I will be), I suggest we take this into our hands because we have the power to. Global laws. Dark sky zones. A sky full of stars for every kid.

But we don’t have to wait for someday. We can start now.

Talk about it. Care about it. Look up.

Because the stars are still there. We just have to let them in.