Related papers: Whitening the Sky: light pollution as a form of cu…
Imagining what life on other planets, and intelligent life in particular, may be like is a long-running theme in human culture. It is a manifestation of the innate human curiosity about the Cosmos, and it has inspired numerous works of art…
We seek to model the coupled evolution of a planet and a civilization through the era when energy harvesting by the civilization drives the planet into new and adverse climate states. In this way we ask if triggering "anthropocenes" of the…
Light pollution is a worldwide problem that has a range of adverse effects on human health and natural ecosystems. Using data from the New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness, VIIRS-recorded radiance and Gross Domestic Product…
We analyze the implications of transboundary pollution externalities on environmental policymaking in a spatial and finite time horizon setting. We focus on a simple regional optimal pollution control problem in order to compare the global…
Human influence on the biosphere has been evident at least since the development of widespread agriculture, and some stratigraphers have suggested that the activities of modern civilization indicate a geological epoch transition. The study…
The correlation between infrared-to-ultraviolet luminosity ratio and ultraviolet color, i.e. the IRX-UV relation, was regarded as a prevalent recipe for correcting extragalactic dust attenuation. Considerable dispersion in this relation…
Unless properly corrected for, the existence of intergalactic dust will introduce a redshift dependent magnitude offset to standard candle sources. This would lead to overestimated luminosity distances compared to a dust-free universe and…
I review recent observational and theoretical progress in our understanding of the cosmic evolution of luminous sources. Largely due to a combination of deep HST imaging, Keck spectroscopy, and COBE far-IR background measurements, new…
This article sets out our perspective on how to begin the journey of decolonising computational fields, such as data and cognitive sciences. We see this struggle as requiring two basic steps: a) realisation that the present-day system has…
Observations of clusters of galaxies that gravitationally lens faint background galaxies can probe the amount and the equation of state, $\5$, of the dark energy (quintessence) in the universe. Provided that the mass profile and the mass…
Hundreds of years ago, colonization happened. Today we are still living out the ripple effects of this history. How does this relate to science, informal science education, and institutions that promote science communication? What…
Spectroscopic study of the night sky has been a common way to assess the impacts of artificial light at night at remote astronomical observatories. However, the spectroscopic properties of the urban night sky remain poorly documented. We…
Habitat loss, driven primarily by anthropogenic activity, significantly threatens ecosystem sustainability. While it is well understood that habitat loss is the leading contributor to declines in biodiversity worldwide, the connection…
It is currently impossible to determine the abundances of stellar populations star-by-star in dense stellar systems more distant than a few megaparsecs. Therefore, methods to analyse the composite light of stellar systems are required. I…
Astrotourism brings new opportunities to generate sustainable socio-economic development, preserve cultural heritage, and inspire and educate the citizens of the globe. This form of tourism can involve many different activities, such as…
Culture evolves, not just in the trivial sense that cultures change over time, but also in the strong sense that such change is governed by Darwinian principles. Both biological and cultural evolution are essentially cumulative selection…
This white paper explains that professional astronomy has benefited from settler colonial white supremacist patriarchy. We explicate the impact that this has had on communities which are not the beneficiaries of colonialism and white…
In traditional astronomies across the world, groups of stars in the night sky were linked into constellations -- symbolic representations rich in meaning and with practical roles. In some sky cultures, constellations are represented as line…
Dark stars powered by dark matter annihilation have been proposed as the first luminous sources in the universe. These stars are believed to form in the central dark matter cusp of low-mass minihalos. Recent calculations indicate stellar…
Waste heat production represents an inevitable consequence of energy conversion as per the laws of thermodynamics. Based on this fact, by using simple theoretical models, we analyze constraints on the habitability of Earth-like terrestrial…