Homes and streets are lit at all hours so that people can go about their business when they’d once have been asleep.
One aspect has avoided the spotlight though.
Do civilisations exist on planets other than Earth?
But it has also received serious attention from scientists, who have thought of ways to find and possibly contact these alien species.
In 1974, radio astronomer Frank Drake used the then most powerful radio transmitter, at Arecibo in Puerto Rico, to broadcast a message into space announcing our presence.
The message will now be 45 light years away from us.