Beyoncé's career in 📷 Solar eclipse guide 😎 Previous US disasters Play to win 🏀
TRAVEL
Texas

Death Valley named world's largest 'dark sky park'

Laura Bly, USA TODAY
Death Valley named world's largest 'dark sky park': The 3.4-million-acre Mojave Desert preserve, which also ranks as the biggest national park in the Lower 48, earned the designation this week.

California's Death Valley National Park, already acclaimed as the hottest, driest and lowest spot in North America, is rising to new heights as the world's largest "dark sky" park.

The 3.4-million-acre Mojave Desert preserve, which also ranks as the biggest national park in the Lower 48, earned the designation this week from the Arizona-based International Dark-Sky Association. The group cited the park's natural darkness (despite "light pollution" from Las Vegas, about 85 miles to the south) and improvements to exterior lighting in the popular Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells areas.

"At Death Valley the sky literally begins at your feet," Tyler Nordgren, associate professor of physics at the University of Redlands (Calif.) told the National Parks Traveler."When my students and I look up at night from our southern California campus, we can usually count 12 stars in the sky. However, less than a five-hour drive from Los Angeles there's a place where anyone can look up and see the universe the way everyone could 100 years ago." The park hosts regular astronomy and dark sky awareness events; the 2nd annual Mars Fest takes place March 1-3.

While several national park units such as Utah's Bryce Canyon National Park and New Mexico's Chaco Cultural National Historical Park are renowned for their dark skies and stargazing programs, the only other units to gain the association's gold certification status are Utah's Natural Bridges National Monument and Texas' Big Bend National Park.

Featured Weekly Ad