New night sky recognition highlights park's historical significance: "The night sky unites us all as humans"
CBSN
Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park is being recognized for what can only be seen in the dark. It was recently named another International Dark Sky Park for the exceptional quality of its star-filled nights.
The night sky over Mesa Verde today remains among the darkest 1% in the country.
The park had already been designated a World Heritage Site, featuring the best-preserved structures of the Pueblo people. Nestled inside it is an area with 150 rooms, constructed out of sandstone and mortar. TJ Atsye says her ancestors once gathered there, nearly a thousand years ago. She said the area was probably built around 1150.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.