iNational Museum of Natural HistoryNational Mall
Lights Out: Recovering Our Night Sky
The vanishing dark: the moon, a field of stars and the Milky Way, how light pollution disrupts nocturnal animals, and what communities are doing to win the night back. Closes December 2026.
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Twenty birds lie belly up in one glass case, warblers fanned around a Cooper's hawk. Volunteers with the DC and Baltimore Lights Out programs picked them off downtown sidewalks at dawn after they flew into lit buildings. It's the bleakest case in a show that mostly wants you to look up.
You walk into a long, dim gallery painted in night blues and greys, with an entrance at each end; the story starts on the rotunda side, above the elephant. Halfway along, a theater takes a painted field from sunset to night and switches on a ceiling of small bulbs as stars, for just under 12 minutes. Hyperallergic said the show weighs the "primal awe" of a dark sky against the "quotidian horror" electric light brings other species. A touchable bronze dung beetle explains that some African dung beetles steer by the Milky Way, which would get them nowhere on the Mall.
It's free with no ticket, on the second floor, until December 2026.
Look for
The window-strike birds
Look for twenty warblers, a woodcock and a Cooper's hawk laid belly up in one case, all collected from DC and Baltimore sidewalks after hitting lit buildings on migration.
Milky Way, Starry Night #2
Gwich'in artist Margaret Nazon's beadwork runs chains of blue, white and black glass beads across black cloth as the Milky Way, with Orion's belt in three big blue stars.
The night-sky theater
A 21-foot screen goes from sunset to night over a painted field while small ceiling bulbs come on as stars, in a narrated program just under 12 minutes long.
Zion and Las Vegas, side by side
Two photographs by the entrance: the Milky Way arching over Zion's peaks, and Las Vegas, 160 miles away, under a starless grey haze.
A brief history of lighting
Five cases run from a Yaqui candlewood torch and a Roman bronze lamp with a horse-head handle to LEDs, and the painted sky above each one holds fewer stars.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Nerding Out
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You came for specimens: the museum says this one is mostly large photographs.
With kids
Kids can touch a bronze dung beetle and a star dome, and help a firefly find its mate at an interactive. The gallery is dim throughout.
Also at National Museum of Natural History
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Image credits
9
- Lights Out: Recovering Our Night SkyCourtesy of National Museum of Natural History
- Free and Independent: A Celebration of the DeclarationCourtesy of National Archives Museum
- In Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and HappinessCourtesy of National Museum of American History
- How Can You Forget Me: Filipino American StoriesCourtesy of National Museum of American History
- National Museum of Natural Historyajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- National Archives MuseumDavid Samuel (Hellodavey1902) via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- National Museum of American HistoryCarol M. Highsmith / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- National Museum of Asian ArtDifference engine, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenGryffindor, via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain