London's sky at night

Londoners never see the night sky - a glorious panoply of planets and comets, galaxies and constellations.

It is shrouded behind an impenetrable fog of light pollution. From London, and all the South-East, save for a few tiny patches, there might as well be few comets, no meteor showers, few galaxies and only a handful of bright stars.

A committee of MPs is to hold an inquiry into light pollution in Britain and will hear evidence from the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Observatory and astronomers including Sir Patrick Moore.

Sir Patrick says he has a simple solution to light pollution - make street lights shine downwards. "It is becoming a real menace," he said. "Street lights, advertising lights, security lights and floodlights - they are all a problem. We are not asking for lights to be put out. We do, after all, need law and order. But we are asking for them to be made to shine downwards."

A map of the intensity of light pollution over Europe shows that looking upwards from London and most of the South-East, it is possible to see only the brightest planets and a handful of major stars. Even our own galaxy, the Milky Way - the long, cloud-like band of stars and interstellar gas that stretches from horizon to horizon - has been blotted out by the glare from street lamps and urban illumination.

It disappeared from the skies of London, its suburbs, and of other cities, 40 years ago, banished by the glow of neon and sodium lighting. From the rural South-East it is now barely visible, and then only on moonless nights away from roads and houses.

"Comets and far galaxies would have been the first to go,î ³ays Robin Catchpole, astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. "I have given up asking children in Britain whether they have seen the Milky Way. None of them have. They think it is a chocolate bar. Children here don't see it any more unless they go on holiday."

The Leonid meteor showers every November are invisible for most people in the South-East. Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997, the third-brightest to be visible from earth since 1400, could only just be seen, and so could Comet Hyakutake the previous year. Even Halley's Comet - the most famous of all - could barely be seen from the outskirts when it passed in 1986.

Yet it would be perfectly possible to restore this sight with a few simple and not very expensive changes, according to Sir Patrick, one of many astronomers whose lobbying has prompted MPs to begin the inquiry. Lights designed to put illumination where it is needed, rather than spread it about indiscriminately, cost slightly more than conventional designs, he says. "But without them, your children will never see, not just the Milky Way, but the true beauty of the whole night sky," added Sir Patrick.

Of 3,000 celestial objects Londoners could have seen before the advent of the street light, only a handful are visible from the centre.