You can't see the stars in the UAE. People go to the desert to see the Milky Way
In the United Arab Emirates, it's hard to see a real starry sky. The lights of skyscrapers, highways, advertising screens and tourist areas have made the night sky over the cities too bright. The Milky Way, which once helped Bedouins navigate the desert, has become almost inaccessible to most people in the country.
Now people are travelling to the Al Quaa desert near Abu Dhabi to get it. It is one of the darkest places left in the UAE. There, volunteers from the Dubai Astronomy Group organise night outings to show constellations, let people look through telescopes and help take long exposure photos of the Milky Way.
Details
Al Quaa'a Desert is about 100 kilometres southeast of Abu Dhabi, away from the main city lights. According to the Associated Press, families, astronomy buffs and tourists come there to see something that is almost impossible to see from cities: the faint bright band of the Milky Way.
During these outings, people sit on rugs right in the desert, gaze up at the sky, watch meteors and learn how to photograph stars. When the moon dips below the horizon, the sky becomes darker and the Milky Way can be seen with the naked eye.
The main reason why this is hardly seen in UAE cities is light pollution. This is excess artificial light that scatters in the atmosphere and creates a glowing dome over cities. It blocks out the faint light of distant stars.
The problem is not just local. The Global Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness, published in 2016, revealed that more than 80 per cent of the world's population lives under a light-polluted sky, and the Milky Way is hidden from more than a third of humanity.
For the UAE, the situation is particularly notable due to heavy urbanisation and the concentration of the population in brightly lit cities. The AP piece cites an estimate from a 2016 study: 99 per cent of the Emirati population cannot see the Milky Way from home due to artificial lighting.
The UAE is known for its night-lit cities: roads, building facades, tourist areas, skyscrapers, LED screens. All this makes the urban environment bright and spectacular, but at the same time it erases the natural darkness.
In Abu Dhabi, the problem has already been officially recognised. In 2024, the emirate's authorities launched the Dark Sky Policy, a "dark sky" policy to regulate the lighting of buildings, streets, parks, beaches, industrial zones and other areas. The aim is to reduce light pollution and preserve the ability to observe the night sky.
Why it's important
The starry sky is not just a pretty picture. For desert people, it was part of culture, navigation and everyday experience. Bedouins orientated themselves by the stars, associating them with the seasons and roads across the desert.
Today, that experience is increasingly sought out on purpose. To see the Milky Way, you have to get away from cities, wait for the right phase of the moon, and find places where there is no heavy light pollution.
Light pollution disturbs not only amateur astronomers. It affects ecosystems, nocturnal animals, bird migration, insects and the general human perception of the night. Therefore, the fight for dark skies is not only a matter of tourism or beautiful photos, but also part of environmental policy.
Background
The UAE has developed over the decades into one of the most brightly lit regions in the world. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have become symbols of modern architecture, business tourism and nighttime urban vistas. But along with this, the familiar darkness has disappeared.
Against this background, the Al Quaa desert has become a rare place where you can see the sky almost as it was before the era of mass artificial lighting. This is why people go there not only for astronomy, but also for the sense of scale: one sees the Galaxy again, of which the Earth is a part.