.
Do you learn something new every day? I love it when I do, and I probably always do even when I don't know it. On Sunday, I learned about the International Space Station -- ISS for those of us who are in the know ;-).
To be honest I've never given the ISS one second's thought. Honestly. Not one second. I'm not a big fan of the space program -- I think we should care for people with the money, but what do I know? It turns out the ISS is a tad bit interesting. The space station is a research lab that is constantly in orbit, up in space doing studies, even working with the NIH on medial research. It's probably still a waste of money (imo) but maybe they will find a cure for something -- you just never know.
On Sunday, I found a website that tells you just exactly when the ISS will "fly over" your house. I use that term "fly over" loosely because it is no where near my house, but I can see it. A tiny little light way, way over there. We have to walk up to the end of our street because our yard has too many big trees to see it, and we stand in the middle of the intersection until we spot it way, way over there. Both nights that we have viewed it, it took about one minute to fly from one side of the sky to the other. And we all stood there and said, "Isn't that really awesome?" And some of us waved.
I think this might become a habit at our house -- it's just kind of neat to know that there are people up there in that tiny, tiny light (the light is from the reflection of the sun on the station). Real human people, just like us.
To find out when the ISS "flies over" your house, go here. Chose your country (under Sighting Opportunities), state and city and you will find out where and when to look for it. It's on my sidebar too, in case you lose your link, under "Brain Food for Students."
H/T: the farmer's wife
.
.
Barbara, Thank you for this timely post!! We happen to have friends visiting our lovely Northern MN from the Phoenix area, and we plan to be star-gazing tonight!!
ReplyDeleteLori, It doesn't fly over every day (it is somewhere it can't be seen from where we are, I suppose), but check the schedule to see. If not today, maybe tomorrow or the next day.
ReplyDeleteawesome! I've got a dear friend that works with NASA and she sends me pictures once in awhile of the shuttle missions and images from the space station. Pretty neat!
ReplyDeleteLooks like we've got a whole week of possible views! Now if the weather would just clear up. Thanks so much for sharing!!
It will be flying over us for a few days starting tomorrow! Ditto about the weather... we have been socked in for days. :(
ReplyDeleteThanks for this awesome info, Barb!
:)
Barbara,
ReplyDeleteI did check the schedule when I first read your post this morning.... and it stated it would be visible tonight.
As it turns out we, did see the ISC this evening -- it went overhead at 8:24pm. The 9yo daughter spotted it first, and she was pretty excited about that!! Thanks for posting this. :-)
Lori,
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited that you saw it! I guess being that much north of us, you could still see it when it was beyond our vision. The first night we saw it, Sunday, it was brighter than the next night -- it closer to us the first night. My 7 yo daughter spotted it first -- those young eyes! But once we saw it, we wondered how it was we never knew. I'm sure we would have thought it an airplane if we had.