Two weeks ago, I was staring at an unbelievably star-studded sky. We were in the Peruvian Amazon, far from city lights, and had set up camp along the Alto Madre de Dios, one of the region’s mighty rivers. I wasn’t there to star gaze – my assignment was to report on the jungle tribe that has been emerging along this river – but it was impossible not to spend some time with the evening sky.

Previous trips to the planet’s rainforests have taken me into the trees at night, where leafy canopies obscure all but a few tantalizing patches of pinpricked sky. I’d always known something wonderful lurked above the palm fronds and ironwoods, but it wasn’t until this last trip that