the effects of a sky without stars

[aten_vs_ra]

What would it be like if there were no visible stars (or planets, comets, etc) in the sky? Completely black except for the moon.

I'm working on a fantasy story, and in this world there are no stars (except the sun, of course). I am thinking that the stars faded from view for a very long time, and that it has been at least hundreds, more likely thousands of years, since anyone has seen them.

I'd originally envisioned a present tech level no greater than the mid-18th century (apart from ancient, forgotten sufficiently advanced "magic"), but then realized that a lack of stars would fuck with quite a few things. Let's ignore cosmological or astronomical issues that would arise from having no stars. No, I'm interested in what a lack of visible stars would do to the development of science, technology, and religion.

Navigation and timekeeping spring to mind as the most drastically affected. Without stars, it becomes harder to orient yourself. Most of our historical calendar is based on astronomical units. This world still has a moon, equivalent to Luna, so that may help somewhat. But if you use astronomical knowledge to help plant crops . . .

An inhabitant of this world might find something like Stonehenge and wonder what it could possibly be for.

I'm wondering what might inspire civilization in such a world. Tracking the movement of stars seems to have been a great motivator for the invention of things like mathematics and recordkeeping. I don't even know where to start on what no stars would do to the evolution of spiritual beliefs. Maybe people would be more inclined to animism or noncyclical thought?

I suppose I'm interested in two slightly different questions. What would civilization look like if there had never been any visible stars? And what would it look like if they'd instead faded away slowly? That last one is kind of vague and I suppose it depends on when they dissappeared.

Would like some thoughts. Also, if anyone knows of any good sources about mythology/religion that specifically relate to this topic, that would be helpful.

[Iroscato]

I used to read Focus magazine, and a similar question was posed by a reader. The answer was interesting, but a little inadequate (they seemed to think that the Andromeda galaxy would still be visible in the southern hemisphere, leading to an advancement of cultures such as the Mayans). I think the reader was trying to imagine a sky without ANY astronomical bodies whatsoever.

The most interesting part of the answer suggested that there are star systems inside of massive, starless voids in the cosmos, without any other stars for thousands of light years in any direction, so it might actually be scientifically feasible from that angle. Not much, but I hope it helps

[Broomstick]

If there are still other planets in the solar system there will, in fact, be "stars" although very, very limited in number which would probably be of some use in navigation and time keeping.

Daytime navigation using the sun's position would be unaffected, as would magnetic compasses.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I don't think the question is "What if the only star that existed was the sun" but "What if the only celestial bodies visible were the sun and the moon?"


What it would do to the evolution of spiritual belief, I don't know. It would make navigation much more difficult until the invention of the compass, especially when there's nothing on the horizon to orient yourself. I would guess that societies would tend to be far less prone to spreading and trading with other civilizations simply because navigation without a consistent point of reference is very difficult.

[B5B7]

Have you read Isaac Asimov's classic short story Nightfall, which deals with a similar scenario. His provides a rationale for not seeing the stars (their planet has six stars, so the stars are hidden by all the sunlight, except every couple of thousand years). You could have a huge, dark cloud ( somewhat like in Hoyle's 'The Black Cloud'), to hide all the stars.

[Sinewmire]

Reminds me of Douglas Adam's planet Krikket, a world blanketed by a dust cloud.

The people of Krikket lived happy, peaceful lives, never wondering much about the big stuff. Indeed, when a spaceship crashed on their planet it took a long time for them to realise it could have come from up.

When they reverse-engineer it, and the first Krikkit astronauts exited the dust cloud and saw the stars and the rest of the universe they all had the same thought.

"No, it's all going to have to go".

[Jub]

I don't know enough to know how science and navigation would change in the event that the sun and moon were the only things out there, but I can guess at the spiritual angle.

You'd see a lot of dual god religions in various flavors; much as you saw in our actual history but more so. The interplay between Earth, Sun, and Moon would also likely be huge with eclipses being major events especially in years of note when it comes to years where they could be praised/blamed for something noteworthy. At the heart of it the two biggest things in our sky just become that much larger.

You would also see space staying mysterious for a lot longer, possibly forever. People would eventually get that the moon is solid and possibly try to go there, but that's a ways off. In the formative years you'd get a lot of stories about why there are only two things in the sky. Was there a war? Were they abandoned to us or sent to watch u? Are there more of them hidden where we can't see?

Another change would be where we go when we die and it could go a few ways. I could see people thinking that you went to the object that you had most in common with, some going to the Sun, others to the Moon and yet others to the inky darkness. I could also see people thinking that we stay very close to the Earth being absorbed and embraced under the watchful eye of the gods. I doubt we get the same ideas of heaven being in the clouds without the stars to act their part back before the Judaic mono-myth got rolling.

That's my take anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

What it would do to the evolution of spiritual belief, I don't know...

Lots of sun-worship? I don't know about Jub's inference that you'd see sun/moon worship. The alternative of "sun versus darkness" as the symbolic dualism of a Zoroastrian-type religion might also arise.

It would make navigation much more difficult until the invention of the compass, especially when there's nothing on the horizon to orient yourself. I would guess that societies would tend to be far less prone to spreading and trading with other civilizations simply because navigation without a consistent point of reference is very difficult.

Yes. It would be nearly impossible for ships to navigate reliably out of sight of land after dark, with occasional exceptions when the moon is visible. Long range seafaring would just... not be a thing in this world, I think.

Also note that even after the compass was invented, navigators routinely relied on the stars. Compasses are instruments of very limited precision, especially with pre-industrial technology. And at best a compass tells you which way north is.

For things like knowing exactly how far you have sailed, or (and this is important) what your latitude is, measurements made from the stars are invaluable.

[Jub]

I can see some sort of dualism between the sun and the moon as an alternative to the cultures that worship both, but with the increased importance of the moon in setting a calendar I think it would have a large role. Obviously we have no way of knowing for sure though.

[cosmicalstorm]

Robert Charles Wilson's book Spin deals with a scenario where all the stars suddenly disappear one night. A membrane has encapsulated earth at about 100 km and effectively disconnected Earth from the universe. The membrane projects a fake sun down to Earth so that the planet does not freeze instantly plus it does some other things. It's a worthy story to read for anyone who ever wondered what would happen if the stars went out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(novel)

[Esquire]

For things like knowing exactly how far you have sailed, or (and this is important) what your latitude is, measurements made from the stars are invaluable.

That's... not quite true. You can measure latitude with the Sun alone, albeit only at solar noon. Similarly with navigation; it can be done without stars, but it'll be much more difficult. The major limiting factor is the idea that exact measurements matter. Ptolemy was drawing on hundreds of years of astronomical data when he wrote his Almagest, and lots of it was inspired or made possible by the sheer complexity of the night sky. Humans, and scientists especially, are nothing if not curious.

Timekeeping, at least, won't be a problem. The Sun and Moon provide plenty of periods to choose from, and have the benefit of being much more easily visible than anything the stars do. Equinoxes, anyone? Or the lunar cycle?

[Simon_Jester]

For things like knowing exactly how far you have sailed, or (and this is important) what your latitude is, measurements made from the stars are invaluable.

That's... not quite true. You can measure latitude with the Sun alone, albeit only at solar noon. Similarly with navigation; it can be done without stars, but it'll be much more difficult.

Also, it can only be done during the day. Unless you wish to anchor your ship until noon so that you can be sure your measurements are correct, that's not good enough.

[aten_vs_ra]

Thanks for all the responses so far. I'll be adding Nightfall and Spin to my reading lists. I've heard of both, never checked either out. The flavor is probably more hard sci-fi than what I intend, but it never hurts to have different perspectives. I'm most closely inspired by the Night Land, if anyone is familiar with it.

The information on daylight navigation and the limitations of compasses is helpful. A lack of seafaring exploration suits me just fine, and I hope that these problems might lend credence to having some rather isolated and insular societies.

I also like the ideas about dualistic Sun and moon/darkness gods. I want to have several religious traditions, so I'm happy to have more options avaiable.

[Esquire]

For things like knowing exactly how far you have sailed, or (and this is important) what your latitude is, measurements made from the stars are invaluable.

That's... not quite true. You can measure latitude with the Sun alone, albeit only at solar noon. Similarly with navigation; it can be done without stars, but it'll be much more difficult.

Also, it can only be done during the day. Unless you wish to anchor your ship until noon so that you can be sure your measurements are correct, that's not good enough.

Admittedly, I don't know anything about Age of Sail navigational practices, but how much course correction was done during the night watch? I'd assumed that sort of thing was mostly the province of the captain, who likely wouldn't be up and about then if he could help it.

[LaCroix]

Admittedly, I don't know anything about Age of Sail navigational practices, but how much course correction was done during the night watch? I'd assumed that sort of thing was mostly the province of the captain, who likely wouldn't be up and about then if he could help it.

At night, the helmsman would try to keep the northern star over a reference point. Without that, or a compass, he simply couldn't follow a course. Humans simply can't go straight lines without a reference point, you always tend to veer off in one direction. It not unusual that a ship went a wide circle during overcast nights if it had no compass, especially if the wind turned during that period.

If there's only the moon as reference point, it would be harder, since it is moving - the helmsman would need to know where the moon should be while it moves to keep a mostly straight course. Not impossible, but much harder.

[Simon_Jester]

At night, the helmsman would try to keep the northern star over a reference point. Without that, or a compass, he simply couldn't follow a course.

To clarify, to take an easy example, if you are sailing north you want Polaris (the North Star) to be directly above your bow, so that the front end of your ship remains permanently pointed north.* The reference point in question is physically on your ship.

*For Avengers fans in the audience: "Is the sun rising? Then put it on the left!" is a pretty good summary of how this works.

If there's only the moon as reference point, it would be harder, since it is moving - the helmsman would need to know where the moon should be while it moves to keep a mostly straight course. Not impossible, but much harder.

And when the moon is dark, you're totally out of luck. Even when there is a crescent moon, more or less by definition that occurs on days when the moon and sun are close together in the sky, so the moon will rise only a few hours earlier/later than the sun. For a large fraction of each lunar cycle, for a large fraction of the night, the moon is simply not visible.

[slebetman]

There is a documentary, City Dark, that grapples with this question. Except it is talking about the planet Earth today, not a fictional setting. Right now, it's probable that the majority of humans on earth see an empty sky at night (I'm assuming the majority of humans live in or around cities because even in places like Afghanistan the majority of the population live in relatively urban environments).

Here's a short trailer of City Dark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1fTkF8PIu0

I'm also reminded Neil Degrasse Tyson's description of his first visit to a planetarium thinking that the display of the stars must be fake because he's never seen the night sky like that. He says to this day every time he sees a proper, clear night sky full of stars it feels sort of "fake" to him.

I remember the first time I properly saw a sky full of stars - it was when I was 18 when I got a scholarship to attend school in Norway.

To my kids stars are those things they hear about in nursery rhymes and rarely make an appearance in the night sky. The most stars they've seen in the sky is around half a dozen.

Of course, for us it's a bit different because although we can't/don't see stars we have lots of art and literature that tell us that the stars are there. Still, one wonders what long term effects there might be to not seeing stars (or at least a sky full of stars).

When I first saw a proper night sky I felt that for the first time I understood the scale of the galaxy if not the universe. I've known about it, of course, from reading, but never quite had the gut understanding of what I knew (or at least it shifted my gut understanding of scale).

[Ziggy Stardust]

Related to the navigation issue, it seems to me that, unlike in our timeline, longitude would be the first and pre-eminent navigational measure, not latitude. Historically, anyway (as far back as the 2nd century BC, IIRC), longitude could be calculated, albeit not that accurately, by comparing local time with an absolute time. Now, there are all sorts of problems with this method, but since latitude in this universe could only really be calculated at mid-day, it might lead to an acceleration of the principles/technology required to understand longitude.

This would change the patterns in which civilizations explore and navigate. For example, you could imagine that a ship with a marine chronometer (or a lunar distance almanac) would be able to determine the ship's longitude with some decent degree of accuracy. However, they would be limited to taking latitude measurements once a day (possibly twice a day, I don't know too much about the use of the moon in this regard). So the patterns of exploration would be the inverse of what they were in our timeline: in our world, sailors would often sail to the latitude of their destination, then just follow it in a straight line ("running down a westing/easting"). In this world, you might imagine they will run down "northings"/"southings" and use sporadic measurements and dead reckoning to determine latitude.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Quarantine by Greg Egan is another novel where the stars go out. In this case, because an impenetrable barrier has surrounded the Solar system; so the planets are still visible.

[Korto]

What about comets? If we assume (possibly due to being in a big dust cloud) there's no stars visible,and there's no planets visible (possibly there aren't any other planets large and close enough to see), may there still be comets?
What would it do to a people to have a perfectly black featureless sky, and then have a comet appear at random, without explanation, travel across the sky, and then disappear?
It spun us out enough, and we had a sky full of features. This would surely have incredible significance for them.

[LaCroix]

Actually, with no visible stars, they might be able to see a lot of "twinkles", as the micro-meteorites we can barely make out against the night sky should be visible to them (at least during new moon phase). Big events would be even more notorious, since they get your attention quite easily against a black background...

[Simon_Jester]

Related to the navigation issue, it seems to me that, unlike in our timeline, longitude would be the first and pre-eminent navigational measure, not latitude. Historically, anyway (as far back as the 2nd century BC, IIRC), longitude could be calculated, albeit not that accurately, by comparing local time with an absolute time. Now, there are all sorts of problems with this method, but since latitude in this universe could only really be calculated at mid-day, it might lead to an acceleration of the principles/technology required to understand longitude.

The problem there is that to make this work you need a highly precise clock, and precise timekeeping is a BEAR unless you have metallurgy and such that in Europe wasn't available until the 18th century...

[Ziggy Stardust]

The problem there is that to make this work you need a highly precise clock, and precise timekeeping is a BEAR unless you have metallurgy and such that in Europe wasn't available until the 18th century...

That's true, but the theory of it originated with the ancient Greeks. In a theoretical world where reliable latitude measurement is no longer consistently possible, you might imagine that the type of chronometer and almanacs needed for longitude measurement may be developed sooner.

In addition, I also believe it is possible to calculate longitude by the position of the moon with some reasonable degree of accuracy.

[Iroscato]

I imagine nights would be far, far darker without any light source whatsoever (at least on nights when there is no moon). I wonder if one night out of every month of total darkness would affect things in the long and short term. In the long term, would it affect evolution and favor nocturnal species?
In fact, can anyone answer just how dark such nights would be?

[Irbis]

Yes. It would be nearly impossible for ships to navigate reliably out of sight of land after dark, with occasional exceptions when the moon is visible. Long range seafaring would just... not be a thing in this world, I think.

That is not quite true. If planets are still visible, these will do instead of stars. For example, longitude problem, something that in our world was solved with clock, was also proposed to be solved by observation of the Jovian moons (as they serve as clock of sorts). In our world, people didn't bother, in a world where Jupiter is one of the 3-4 lights on entire sky they would, I think.

Also note that even after the compass was invented, navigators routinely relied on the stars. Compasses are instruments of very limited precision, especially with pre-industrial technology. And at best a compass tells you which way north is.

They relied on stars because it was easy. If all you have is planets, expect navigational books to be compendiums of positions relative to the Moon or each other, telling you exactly where each one points. If you know position of Venus, for example, you can easily calculate north from that.