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DARK SKY HAPPENINGS - August 2019 The Moab Dark Skies was established by the Friends of Arches and Canyonlands Parks in conjunction with the National Park Service and Utah State Parks Division of Natural Resources.
Dark skies are a valuable and rare resource that millions of people throughout the world never get to see. Discover ways to appreciate and conserve Moab’s unique and rare dark skies here at home. The universe is right overhead in our backyards! Darkness Is Best for a Good Night’s Rest
The sixteenth century English playwright Thomas Dekker wrote “ Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together”. Even in the 1500s people understood that there was an intractable link between sleep and our health. And now, in the twenty first century, we have a multitude of studies supporting what Dekker and others knew to be true. But our knowledge goes so much deeper than that. We now understand the important balance between bodily functions like melatonin production, a good-night’s rest, long-term health, and how our environment shapes it all.
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But this all changed in the late 1800s with the invention of the electric light bulb. Most of us are now exposed to artificial light at nighttime, interrupting our natural cycle of light and dark. This in turn changes how we sleep. The key to understanding this might be the hormone melatonin. This hormone is secreted by the pineal gland at night, and is known for helping to regulate our biological clocks. The melatonin makes us sleepy, and therefore helps us to get a good night’s rest. However, when exposed to artificial light at night our bodies melatonin levels drop significantly. 
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