This year's event will expose the naked sky

Mar 19, 2009 11:29 GMT  ·  By
Earth Hour will take place on Saturday, the 28th of March. More than 1 billion people are expected to participate. Lights out at 8.30, local time
   Earth Hour will take place on Saturday, the 28th of March. More than 1 billion people are expected to participate. Lights out at 8.30, local time

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researchers advise people to turn off the lights in their homes and shops during this year's Earth Hour (EH), scheduled to take place on Saturday, the 28th of March, at 8.30 pm local time, regardless of where they live. More than 1,760 cities worldwide, in 80 countries, have vowed to take part in this massive international protest against lack of concrete actions against global warming. During this event, individuals participating will simply turn off their lights and unplug everything from the sockets.

The manifestation's goal is to prove to authorities worldwide that people are perfectly capable of reducing the amount of electrical current they produce, or even drop it to zero. This year, more than 1 billion are expected to take part in the event.

“Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008, the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness,” a release on the campaign's website, earthhour.org, says.

But there's another reason to take part in this year's EH – the fact that, if you live in a big city, you'll be able to see the stars with unprecedented clarity. On average nights, individuals in places such as New York or Tokyo cannot spot any of them, simply because the city emits too much light. The high contrast dims the starlight to the point where the sky appears totally black.

“It is an added incentive to turn off the lights during Earth Hour because it will be like turning the clock back to a time when Brisbane was very much smaller. During Earth Hour, you will be able to see the mighty constellation of Orion about 25 degrees above the western horizon with a line of three stars known as Orion's belt,” Dr Stephen Hughes, a senior lecturer at QUT, shares.

“Just to the left of the belt is the sword of Orion, a diagonal group of three stars whose central star is a fuzzy patch known as Orion Nebula. The fuzziness is actually a vast ocean of gas and dust where new stars are forming. To the right of Orion's belt you will see a bright red star called Betelgeuse, which is a type of star known as a red giant with a diameter more than 1000 times greater than the sun,” he adds.

“On the left of Orion's belt you will see a bright blue star called Rigel – this is a blue, supergiant 17 times bigger and 40,000 times brighter than our sun. Rigel's surface temperature is 11,000 degrees. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, sits more or less in a line above Orion's belt. Ancient Egyptians looked for Sirius, the white star, to herald the start of the annual flooding of the Nile. Sirius is relatively close because it is only 8.6 light years away. A light year is about 9.5 trillion kilometers,” he concludes.