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QF Focus Magazine
International Space Station (ISS) – want to see it for yourself? As you probably already know I like to look up at the night sky, and recently I saw a fascinating article online about the ISS. Did you know that it’s the largest artificial body on orbit around our planet and you can see it without any fancy equipment, all your need is a dark night and your eyes?
It is permanently inhabited with scientists and zips above us at about 400km. Many people think that the ISS stays in place because of a lack of gravity, no, think of it as constantly falling over the horizon of earth, it’s essentially in a constant 'free fall' around our planet. At 400 tons it's huge, but because of the millions of pieces of space debris also orbiting the earth, the ISS does need to move to avoid the larger pieces - having your tin
The ISS orbits the earth once every 90 minutes, travelling at a velocity of 27,600km per hour.
can punctured by a piece of rubbish moving at over 27,000 kmph would negatively impact your day! The ISS is moved by a team of people on earth
who track things large enough to cause serious harm (about 500,000 of them). Once an item is identified as being on a possible collision course, then the thrusters and gyroscopes on the ISS come into play to move the ISS out of the way - all of this is controlled from the ground, the guys in the “tin can” don’t have to do anything. Something that you might like to do one evening is to watch the ISS pass overhead. There are plenty of websites that can help you. What you need to try to do is be in as dark a place as possible with as much of the horizon viewable as you can, being on a roof terrace high up would be a great spot! The website:-
https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings is a great resource to allow you to plan your viewing evening. Just enter your country and town and it will spit out dates and times when the ISS will be overhead in your area. First, select a time when it will be dark enough, any time after around 21:15 at the moment is good. The website will tell you where to look, at what time and in which direction. It will tell you how long the ISS will be visible - it moves very quickly much quicker than an aircraft and it doesn’t flash, it will be one of the brightest objects in the sky and easy to spot. Why not pick a night and have a look up, you won’t be disappointed. Article by Richard Cavender, Vega Baja Astronomy Group.
The Vega Baja Astronomy Group meet at Casa Tom on Avenida Jaca, San Luis, Torrevieja every second Wednesday of each month at 2.30pm. All are welcome.
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