{"id":22692,"date":"2025-02-24T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T06:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22692"},"modified":"2025-02-24T06:42:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T06:42:31","slug":"embracing-darkness-on-the-isle-of-rum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22692","title":{"rendered":"Embracing Darkness on the Isle of Rum"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rum, a diamond-shaped island off the western coast of Scotland, is home to 40 people. Most of the island \u2014 40 square miles of mountains, peatland and heath \u2014 is a national nature reserve, with residents mainly nestled around Kinloch Bay to the east. What the Isle of Rum lacks is artificial illumination. There are no streetlights, light-flooded sports fields, neon signs, industrial sites or anything else casting a glow against the night sky. On a cold January day, the sun sets early and rises late, yielding to a blackness that envelopes the island, a blackness so deep that the light of stars manifests suddenly at dusk and the glow of the moon is bright enough to navigate by.<\/p>\n

For this reason, Rum was recently named Europe\u2019s newest dark-sky sanctuary, a status that DarkSky International<\/a>, a nonprofit organization focused on reducing light pollution, has granted to only 22 other places in the world. With the ever-increasing use of artificial lighting at night, places where people can gaze at the deep, ancient light of the universe are increasingly rare. Rum\u2019s designation is the result of a long, meticulous bid by the Isle of Rum Community Trust. The effort was led by Alex Mumford, the island\u2019s former tourism manager, and Lesley Watt, Rum\u2019s reserve officer, with the support of Steven Gray and James Green, two astronomers who started Cosmos Planetarium, a mobile theater offering immersive virtual tours of the night sky. Rum \u201cstands for something greater,\u201d Mr. Mumford said, and aspires to be \u201ca haven for others to experience the darkness and the Milky Way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Peaks in the range known as the Rum Cuillin, from left: Barkeval, Hallival, Askival and Trollabhal.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Steven Gray, an astronomer at Cosmos Planetarium, which he owns and runs with James Green.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Astronomers use green laser pointers to identify planets and constellations.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Serious effort has been made to strike a balance between the dark skies and the human world in Kinloch.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Rum, a diamond-shaped island off the western coast of Scotland, is home to 40 people. Most of the island \u2014 40 square miles of mountains, peatland and heath \u2014 is a national nature reserve, with residents mainly nestled around Kinloch Bay to the east. What the Isle of Rum lacks is artificial illumination. There are no streetlights, light-flooded sports fields, neon signs, industrial sites or anything else casting a glow against the night sky. On a cold January day, the sun sets early and rises late, yielding to a blackness that envelopes the island, a blackness so deep that the light of stars manifests suddenly at dusk and the glow of the moon is bright enough to navigate by.For this reason, Rum was recently named Europe\u2019s newest dark-sky sanctuary, a status that DarkSky International, a nonprofit organization focused on reducing light pollution, has granted to only 22 other places in the world. With the ever-increasing use of artificial lighting at night, places where people can gaze at the deep, ancient light of the universe are increasingly rare. Rum\u2019s designation is the result of a long, meticulous bid by the Isle of Rum Community Trust. The effort was led by Alex Mumford, the island\u2019s former tourism manager, and Lesley Watt, Rum\u2019s reserve officer, with the support of Steven Gray and James Green, two astronomers who started Cosmos Planetarium, a mobile theater offering immersive virtual tours of the night sky. Rum \u201cstands for something greater,\u201d Mr. Mumford said, and aspires to be \u201ca haven for others to experience the darkness and the Milky Way.\u201dPeaks in the range known as the Rum Cuillin, from left: Barkeval, Hallival, Askival and Trollabhal.Steven Gray, an astronomer at Cosmos Planetarium, which he owns and runs with James Green.Astronomers use green laser pointers to identify planets and constellations.Serious effort has been made to strike a balance between the dark skies and the human world in Kinloch.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22694,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22695,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22692\/revisions\/22695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}