Spot a man-made marvel in night sky
DURING the next couple of weeks, a fascinating object will be visible in the night sky.
But this time it isn’t any kind of natural phenomena, it’s entirely human made – the International Space Station.
The ISS is a massive orbiting spacecraft, one of the largest that has ever been constructed.
It has been a huge accomplishment, not just in terms of science and engineering but also with regard to politics.
Taking more than 20 years to plan and construct, it was built in partnership between the space agencies from the United States, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan.
Home and workplace to up to eight astronauts at a time, the station serves as an orbital laboratory.
Scientists and engineers can study the effects of prolonged exposure to micro-gravity, conducting experiments related to astronomy, biology, chemistry, technology and medicine. Travelling in orbit at speeds over 17,000mph, it takes the ISS just 90 minutes to make a complete orbit around the Earth. This means the astronauts experience 16 sunrises and sunsets a day.
One of the best things about the ISS for you, the casual stargazer, is that you can see it with your own eyes – no telescope is necessary.
The space station orbits above the Earth at about 250 miles altitude. It’s as large as a football pitch – 330ft long and more than 230ft wide – with a vast array of solar panels.
When the ISS passes into sunlight, it reflects that light down to the surface, where we can view it. And because of its size, it has become quite a bright object.
It generally orbits above Southern England and Northern Europe, so from the more northern latitudes of Scotland the ISS appears as a bright point object moving across the southern horizon.
It moves quite quickly and is visible for one or two minutes as it passes from south-west to south-east.
It’s easy to spot. All you need to know now is when and where to look in the sky – and, obviously, having clear weather helps too – and you can find that out in a number of ways.
There are useful websites, such as Heavens Above or NASA’s Spot The Station, which allow you to enter your nearest location in Scotland and in return will give you a list of ISS sighting opportunities for the coming days. There are also smartphone and tablet apps which will give you alerts based on your GPS location. Or you can follow the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory on Facebook and Twitter (@darkskyobs) where we will be giving alerts about the ISS throughout the next week or so.
So next time it’s clear, head outside and you might be able to see an orbiting space station.