Greenbelt, MD Night Sky Brightness
What the night sky looks like over Greenbelt, MD
Satellite radiance puts Greenbelt in the suburban band. Light dome dominates much of the sky. Only the brightest stars and planets stand out clearly. Only 70.6% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Greenbelt.
The number comes from orbit, not a stargazer's logbook, so treat it as an estimate of sky glow rather than a certified Bortle class - the Bortle scale guide covers why.
How far Greenbelt is from a meaningfully darker sky
2 miles from Greenbelt, straight-line, sits New Carrollton, MD, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Greenbelt's own suburban band.
New Carrollton, MD is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
Greenbelt against the rest of the dataset
Greenbelt, MD has a population of about 24,843, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Among all 3,206 cities here, Greenbelt ranks 2,250 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured, by the sampling the methodology guide documents.