Telescopes: 'worthless'

" A top Cambridge astronomer has warned that star-gazing will be
impossible by the middle of this century. Professor Gerry Gilmore said
ground-based telescopes would be "worthless" if cheap air travel
continues to boom and climate change increases cloud cover as
predicted.

He said to reporters: "You either give up your cheap trips to Majorca,
or you give up astronomy. You can't do both."

Condensation from jets - contrails - contributes to the overall
murkiness of the atmosphere, Gilmore said: "The rate at which they're
expanding in terms of their fractional cover of the stratosphere is so
large that if predictions are right, in 40 years it won't be worth
having telescopes on Earth anymore - it's that soon." ...

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03...loud_problems/