Light Pollution and Arizona's Telescopes

There is no Border Patrol in space. But the very earthly cat-and-mouse game between smugglers and America's border agents is affecting the exploration of space, lighting up the nighttime sky in southern Arizona and making astronomers strain even harder to figure out the mysteries of the universe.

Arizona is an astronomy haven with an array of prestigious observatories taking advantage of the state's dry weather, minimal cloud cover and dark skies. But the state's astronomers worry about a variety of threats — border enforcement among them — to the pristine conditions that have allowed them to discover new planets, gain important insights into how the universe functions and generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually in economic return.

Drug smugglers and illegal immigrants making their way north are sometimes visible to astronomers at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory here who take a break from gazing skyward to look around the rough, wooded terrain. But it is not the outlaws that affect their work as much as the authorities who are after them.…