One Humanity · One Sky
Our Mission: One million people stating that the night sky matters. For this generation and the next. Will you sign the Night Sky Statement for Humanity?
Across most of human history, the Night Sky has been our shared reference point. For time, for place, for meaning.
For the first time in our collective history,
from new technological expansion in space,
the universal view of the Night Sky is critically at risk.
If you think the Night Sky is valuable,
sign The Night Sky Statement for Humanity.
What the Statement stands for
COMMONS
HERITAGE
DETERMINATION
The Night Sky is a commons to Humanity.
IDENTITY
Across most of human history, the Night Sky has been our shared reference point. For time, for place, for meaning.
ENQUIRY
Every person deserves a voice in the future of the Night Sky.
ECOSYSTEM
Our relationship with the Night Sky shapes our personal and collective identity.
The Night Sky is an inexhaustible source of enquiry about ourselves and our universe.
The Sky is the second half of the
Earth ecosystem.
What the Statement is
A love letter to the sky
The stories, the memories, the wonder passed down through every human generation.
A statement
that this relationship matters: to our identity, our culture, our sense of place in the universe.
A pledge
Everyone on Earth has a voice in what happens to the Night Sky next.
Why this Statement now?
Around 2020, new technologies emerged allowing the launch of many satellites into orbit. Other technologies have been proposed that challenge our view of the Night Sky in ways never considered before.
In response to what many considered a crisis, various parties started having conversations together about the best recourse for a shared use of space: the commercial space industries, astronomers, the U.N., politicians, space law experts…
The conversation evolved into a two-speed process, where the legal and ethical framework is slow and uncertain, while technological presence and competition in space is soaring, modifying our view of the Night Sky in unprecedented ways.
In this conversation, one important party has not been asked: the people of the Earth.
We believe a strong, united voice from humankind is not just welcome in this conversation. It is overdue. The Statement is a chance to express just that.
Those threats to the Night Sky are being proposed now and just the beginning of many more projects submitted in the absence of any common ethical, regulated or legal frame work. Any of those projects coming to life would alter access to the Night Sky in unprecedented ways.
The time is now.
Photo Credit: Max Alexender
humans have signed
countries
signatures is our first target
Humans who have signed
Sign the Statement
The Night Sky Statement
for Humanity
“I, the undersigned, share a worldview where the Night Sky matters, and state:
That the Night Sky is a commons to Humanity, held by no one, owed to everyone.
That across most of human history, the Night Sky has been our shared reference point. For time, for place, for meaning.
That our relationship with the Night Sky shapes who we are, personally and collectively.
That the Night Sky is an inexhaustible source of enquiry about ourselves and our universe.
That the Sky is the second half of the planetary ecosystem, as essential to life on Earth as the ground beneath us.
That every person deserves a voice in the future of the Night Sky.
One Humanity. One Sky.”
v1.0
The First Signature
I was leading a stargazing tour in Jervis Bay, NSW, when a line of satellites crossed the sky above us. Not scattered points of light, but a solid, unbroken line, moving in formation across everything we had come to see.
None of us said anything for a moment. I didn't know what to say. I'd talked about space light pollution on hundreds of tours. I’d witnessed the satellites at sunsets. But seeing it like this, showed me that the future of the Night Sky was being written right then.
I didn't know what to do about it. But I felt like a voice was missing. The voice of us, humans, looking at the Sky right then. So I started here.
— Dimitri Douchin, astronomer and founder of Sky Commons
“When we look up into the Sky, we each find something different.
But the fact that we all seek something to find in the Sky
is what makes us human.”
— Dimitri Douchin, PhD
