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Braintree High junior urges ‘black out’ for meteor shower

BRAINTREE -- He wears a NASA T-shirt in the freezing cold, giving the distinct impression Calvin O’Brien is an ‘anything for science’ kind of guy. And the 16-year-old Braintree High School junior is getting ready for a big week: the annual peak of the Geminid meteor showers.

“A meteor shower is when small meteorites fall from the sky and burn up in the atmosphere,” O’Brien explained.

Those meteors, about the size of a fist, give off a spectacular amount of light as they fizzle above the Earth. What’s unusual about the Geminid event is that the meteorites are breaking off from an asteroid, not a comet -- with several dozen falling per hour.

While the weather is expected to be clear Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, O’Brien is worried about something else impeding the viewing: too much light.

“The amount of light that’s in Braintree, in a suburb or Boston does a lot of damage to the viewing capability,” O’Brien said.

Last week, O’Brien proposed to the town council that Braintree residents shut off their lights for one hour Tuesday night to maximize viewing -- and to come down to a high school field to enjoy the celestial show. That’s where O’Brien and his classmates in Braintree High’s Environmental Club plan to gather.

The proposal was well-received by councilors -- with some saying they planned to watch the meteor shower.

O’Brien said he’s been aware of the interference light presents to astronomy for a long time.

“As a lifelong astronomer it was always kind of an issue,” he said. “My first word, my parents say, was ‘moon.’ And my uncle put me in front of a telescope when I was five years old. I’ve loved it ever since.”

O’Brien, who plans to study astronomy in college, says excessive light does more than hide the heavens.

“Light pollution does a lot of damage not only to the environment around us... but to us,” O’Brien said. “Humans face a host of mental problems like insomnia, anxiety and it worsens depression. Some studies even say that it increases cancer rates.”

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