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We are between two meteor showers, but observers can still see something special as they watch the sky at night. The International Space Station is visible at night and is in the form of a bright star moving rapidly on the horizon. But it's fleeting, so how do you know when it's happening directly in North Carolina?
NASA has an excellent tool, Spot the Station, which sends alerts by text or email when ISS is visible from North Carolina. The alert includes a map function to know when and where to look for the station when it is flying over.
Alerts are usually broadcast several times a month, allowing subscribers to know when to look back. The window of opportunity is small – in some places you will only see it for a few minutes, and it may be visible from once a month to several times a week.
If you do not know, the International Space Station has orbited the Earth since 1998, the year of the launch of its first module, and since 2000 has hosted a rotating international crew of 16 countries that have collaborated in the construction of a permanent space station. The astronauts are directed to the microgravity laboratory by US and Russian spacecraft and usually spend about six months living and working in space.
(For more information of this type, find your local patch here.) If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free iPhone Patch app, download the free Android Patch app here.)
Speaking of bringing the crew to the space lab, there was a tragedy on Thursday when a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a new US-Russian crew into the space station failed during its ascent, returning the crew capsule to Earth in a ballistic comeback, NASA officials said. Astronaut Nick Hague of NASA, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and crew members are all in good condition. They had to join a crew of three already on board the space station.
You can not see the International Space Station during the day, but it becomes visible at night when it reflects sunlight. So, to see it in North Carolina, it has to be dark and the ISS goes vertically.
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If you live in Alaska or in other northern areas, check out the Spot the Station on the NASA website to find out when you are likely to see the scientific lab in orbit. You can also sign up to receive alerts.
OK, the space station does not produce fireballs and does not leave traces. But it's still pretty cool to offer a glimpse of the future as NASA begins to explore other worlds, but also to enjoy life on Earth. Finding the space station with your children is a great opportunity to bring science to life – an area we are expecting in this part of the world compared to other countries.
Check out the space station's activity guide to find out what you can do with your children when the space station is overhead.
Beth Dalbey's original article, Patch Staff
Photo of astronaut James H. Newman via NASA
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