Night falls over the Chilean Atacama Desert, and four powerful telescopes begin to scan the darkest, starriest skies in the world from Paranal, an observatory threatened by the potential light pollution from a massive energy project. "This place is the observatory with the darkest skies in the world," says 49-year-old Steffen Mieske, head of scientific operations at Paranal. "Losing that, in my opinion, would be a great loss for science and humanity," he tells AFP. Scientists are concerned about the light pollution from the project. By interfering with the natural darkness, the excess of artificial light causes a glow that limits visibility of eclipses or meteor showers, for example. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES