Star light, star bright.

These days, in some places, it's hard to know if the stars still shine. Too often, the celestial nighttime view is obscured by brightly lit shopping malls and the general glare from urban centers. Reducing this light pollution, however, is no longer a shot in the dark. New Mexico passed the Night Sky Protection Act in 2000 that requires lights out at 11 p.m. for all public and private parks and bans high-powered mercury vapor bulbs for street lights. More than 200 cities and nine other states--Colorado, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah and Virginia--have adopted laws regulating everything from the direction of billboard lighting to how late ballparks can stay lit up. One solution is as easy as making sure lights shine down, instead of up. The International Dark-Sky Association estimates that $2 billion is wasted every year by lights that needlessly point upward and drown out the heavens.