'Dark skies have always been home': How light pollution affects my connection to First Nations culture (2024)

Dark skies have always been home to me.

I was born to a Gomeroi/Kamilaroi woman on rural Bpangerang Country in Victoria where sharing star stories and gazing upwards filled the sweetest moments of my childhood.

After losing my mum so unexpectedly when I had just turned 18, astronomy soon became my life's focus.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have always been keen observers with a legacy of scientific pursuit that spans over 65,000+ years.

Over the millennia, the world has borne witness to the rise and fall of ancient cultures globally. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have sustained an unwavering presence in Australia throughout this time, maintaining healthy diverse landscapes and bearing witness to extraordinary geological and astrophysical events that persist only in oral record, otherwise being lost to history.

For example, the Luritja community in the Northern Territory describe in specific detail meteorite impacts that created the Henbury crater field 4,200 years ago.

Our night skies may seem somewhat static on the timescales of your lifetime.

Think on your own experiences — you likely find constellations familiar to you from childhood returning to their usual positions in the sky each year as you age.

The Southern Cross is always present in the southern skies however constellations like the human figure of Orion, or faint cluster of stars known as the Seven Sisters, disappear for months at a time over winter.

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We have been able to trust that every spring they will begin their return.

Their annual positions stay the same, however on the timescale of 65,000 years our night skies have seen remarkable shifts. This is due to the 26,000-year cycle over which the Earth wobbles on its axis and brings new stars into focus.

This history is captured in the creation stories of Tasmania's First Peoples who describe a celestial and terrestrial landscape only possible 12,000 years prior.

I am proud to carry on the legacy of my ancestors, and in this way I still carry my mum with me.

She was always most inspired by the Seven Sisters, a dim cluster of stars which represent feminine resilience.

These stars, also known as the Pleiades, became the focus of my research as I sought to understand the significance of their stories that belong to many Indigenous communities.

However even under rural skies now, light pollution is drowning out the light from faint stars like the Seven Sisters; erasing constellations from view which have guided our engagement with Country since time immemorial — a time before living memory.

The sky is a library

Traditional knowledge systems have been built on careful observations across an unfathomably long time span, resulting in intrinsically interconnected understandings of how Country, Sea Country, and Sky Country intersect.

Many Aboriginal communities emphasise the prominence of the land-sky connection; an understanding that what is found above in Sky Country is reflected into the landscape below. A duality that applies to all animals, plants, beings and features of the landscape.

For communities like the Euahlayi in northern NSW and Queensland, the land and sky began as one entity in which all it encompassed took the same form, spoke the same language, and lived in harmony, until an event in the Dreaming tore Sky Country and the land in two.

The scar from this separation persists as the river of stars partially obscured by interstellar dust which is recognised as the Milky Way galaxy, and is otherwise known as the spiritual landscape Bulimah whose interconnected and reflective nature endures through cultural traditions transmitted across hundreds of generations.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander astronomers grew to realise that this land-sky connection has much insight to offer.

Paying close attention to the rate of twinkling of stars, their changing colours from red to blues, and their haziness help to forecast specific weather events and seasonal change.

Each star holds layers of meaning waiting to be observed — acting much like individual encyclopaedias in the library of the night sky.

Dark-sky constellations

The Milky Way features heavily in the traditions of southern hemisphere cultures as we have the best view of the heart of our home galaxy.

Indigenous peoples' understanding of the skies extends to not just bright stars which we link together in constellational groupings, but we have also developed a deep appreciation for the dark regions of the sky which exist in between the bright — often found in the gas and dust in the Milky Way which blocks its own light and forms dark shadows of varying shapes and sizes.

It is within these dark regions where we find the Emu in the Sky, along with other dark-sky constellations such as the kangaroo, crocodiles, and serpent known by the Kamilaroi people of northern NSW.

The Emu in the Sky informs communities about the behaviour and breeding cycles of the emus of the land — a reflection necessary for guiding a sustainable harvest of emu eggs on Kamilaroi Country.

Dark-sky constellations aren't named as such because they are visually dark in nature, rather they are the constellations that reveal themselves only to those under pristine dark skies.

For example, if you've been out in a dark-sky area, you may recall observing peculiar faint clouds that never alter shape — one large, another small, close to each other and in the line of sight of the Emu.

This pair of cloud-like structures are in actuality a pair of dwarf galaxies known as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds which are set on a collision course with the Milky Way a few billion years into the future.

To many Aboriginal communities they are a pair of birds in the sky, often seen as brolgas. However, they are a faint feature which is quickly drowned out when light pollution is present in the environment — invisible to the majority of Australia's population today.

Light pollution

Light pollution is an insidious form of pollution which historically has been easy to overlook as its impact is subtle.

But more than 80 per cent of the world's population do not have access to dark skies or dark sky constellations, with many never having seen the Milky Way with their own eyes.

As an astronomer, light pollution is irritating as it impacts our ability to conduct observations and collect astrophysical data.

As an Aboriginal woman, light pollution is devastating as it hides our library of stars used to guide a healthy and informed engagement with Country.

For me, light pollution is particularly insidious due to its catastrophic impact on native species which we bear responsibility to protect. These species not only form part of our interconnected knowledge system, but also rely on the light cues in their environments to sustain themselves, many using light to navigate and seek shelter.

Native species like the mountain pygmy possum rely on the consumption of migratory species sensitive to light, such as the Bogong moth, to double their body mass following their seven-month hibernation in Mt Buller each year.

The Bogong moth has seen its numbers fall from over four billion to just a few hundred in recent years, and as such, the marvellous mountain pygmy possum is critically endangered and faces extinction.

Reassurance can be found in recognising that unlike many other pollutants, removing light pollution from an ecosystem can be as simple as turning off the lights.

We have an opportunity and ability to act; to ensure the continuity of native species and millennia-old cultural traditions long into the future — how will you play your part?

Krystal De Napoli is a Gomeroi/Kamilaroi award-winning author, astrophysicist and science communicator devoted to the advocacy of Indigenous knowledges and equity in STEM.

Hear more about Krystal De Napoli's and Peter Swanton's connection to Sky Country on AWAYE and subscribe to the podcast for more stories about Indigeneous arts and culture.