International Space Station – When, where and how to spot ISS

Image credit: NASA

New Delhi: The International Space Station (ISS), which serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory for crew members to conduct experiments, can be watched from several thousand worldwide locations.

Here are some interesting facts about the ISS as provided by NASA:

• The space station can be easily spotted with the naked eye from Earth, no equipment required.
• For the space station to be visible, it must be 40 degrees or more above the horizon.
• The space station is visible because it is reflecting light from the Sun – which means even when the Moon hasn’t risen, you’ll still be able to see the space station.
• However, unlike the Moon, the space station isn’t bright enough to see during the day. It can only be seen when it is dawn or dusk at your location.
• Sighting opportunity can range from one a month to several a week, since it has to be both dark where you are, and the space station has to happen to be going overhead.
• It is the third brightest object in the night sky.
• It looks like a fast-moving plane only much higher and traveling thousands of miles an hour faster or a very bright star moving across the sky, except it doesn’t have flashing lights or change direction.
• The space station circles the Earth every 90 minutes, travelling at about 17,500 miles (28,000 km) per hour, which gives the crew 16 sunrises and sunsets every day.

Till date, 226 individuals from 18 countries have visited the space station.