Way, way out in the Atlantic Ocean, at a point where one of Earth’s four cold-water currents meets the searing African desert winds, nights are as dark as prehistory. Once the sun sets on the volcanic archipelago known as the Canary Islands, a misty net of extraterrestrial white light blankets the sky from horizon to horizon. Until dawn, every ray of visible starlight in the entire Northern Hemisphere and much of the Southern Hemisphere gathers overhead. That sprawl of sky over a small island speck on the black ocean suggests, like few other experiences, the nanosecond that is human life.
Such black nights and clear skies have beckoned astronomers to install some of the world’s most powerful telescopes on volcanic peaks in this archipelago off the northwestern coast of Africa. As scientists use these state-of-the-art observatories to search out signs of the Big Bang, at sea level 8,000 feet below, tens of thousands of mostly British pensioners and brides-to-be on “hen parties” are getting drunk and sunburned.
Five million tourists annually visit this Spanish territory from colder climes to bask in Europe’s only subtropical weather. The port at Tenerife, the largest island, is the third-most-visited cruise ship destination in Europe.
Behemoth floating parties disgorge thousands of passengers daily in wintertime, the high season. Most of them are oblivious to the fact that they have just disembarked on an island with three official UNESCO-sanctioned Starlight Reserves — locations where efforts are being made to fend off light and air pollution to protect access to starlight. Only a small percentage of tourists make the two-hour nauseating and twisting ascent to the telescopes — giant, bulbous white towers, perched at the windy top of Mount Teide.
Birth of astrotourism
That may be about to change. Astrotourism is already a component of the Canaries’ booming tourism industry, drawing about 200,000 visitors annually. But with the 2014 designation of the islands as part of a larger EU SkyRoute itinerary for visitors, and the creation in 2011 of a music and astronomy festival, Canarian officials believe more star trekkers will soon be taking the winding drive up the mountain at dusk to sit on what might be called one of nature’s sky-decks.
Island officials and the Spanish government are trying to cement the islands’ reputation as a key destination for both amateur and professional astronomers. In 2007, scientists and policymakers from some 50 countries met on the smaller island of La Palma for the first International Conference in Defense of the Quality of the Night Sky, producing a declaration on “protecting the sky as a basic right for all humanity.”
Among other matters, they discussed outlawing light pollution in La Palma, home to the world’s largest optical telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory. The island is the second-best location for infrared and optical astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, according to astronomers.
The Canary Islands telescope sites are run by astronomers at the Institute of Astrophysics in Tenerife, a local research organization that operates the European Northern Observatory. The islands have also hosted telescopes from 28 nations over the last few decades.
With the support of UNESCO, the institute in 2007 created a Starlight Foundation and a Starlight Initiative, devoted to keeping night skies dark. With UNESCO, the institute has been certifying “Starlight Reserves” — defined as sites dedicated to protecting darkness from light and air pollution — around the world. Starlight Reserves are certified in Chile (also home to one of the world’s largest telescopes), Nova Scotia and Portugal, in addition to the Canary Islands.
Officials in Tenerife also took the lead in the European Union in promoting stargazing as a tourism pastime in other nations, too. They spearheaded the creation of the EU Sky Route, which traces “an astronomical highway” for tourists across seven participating territories sharing exceptionally dark night skies, including locations in Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland and the Canary Islands.
Serious work
Mount Teide forms a black pyramid at the center of the half-barren, half-green island of Tenerife. Teide is a UNESCO World Heritage site and also a designated Starlight Reserve.
On the highest point on the nearby island of La Palma, at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, hundreds of researchers work at the Gran Telescopio de Canarias (Great Telescope of the Canary Islands).
La Palma, population 70,000, is home to a large colony of scientists and the remnants of a 1960s German commune, and it is also a tiny center for astrotourism. The economy revolves around astronomy, and besides the telescope and research center, there are 13 sky-viewing points on La Palma. Vacationers can even rent telescope-equipped holiday houses and sip a vintage called “stellar wine” from local grapes.
By day from some points near sea level on Tenerife, one can see the white columns of the telescopes perched miles high on the old volcano. Researchers use them to look back in time at starlight generated millenniums ago and to advance humanity’s developing perceptions about space and time.