AlUla has earned Dark Sky Park status, the first in the Middle East, as recognised by DarkSky International. The award is acknowledgement of AlUla's clear window in the cosmos - among the best 5% of anywhere in the world - where visitors can spot the Milky Way, planets, and thousands of stars, enjoy guided night tours, telescope viewing and Bedouin star‑stories under a pristine celestial canopy.

Regional astronomers proposed the Earth revolved around the sun five centuries before Galileo. They calculated the diameter of the Earth, measured the thickness of the atmosphere, and made a host of significant scientific breakthroughs on which later astronomers would build. Not to mention using the stars for navigation in ways few others could. And their legacy lives on in the names of the stars where today, more than 200 of the brightest stars in the sky have Arabic names.