Catch It Before It’s Gone
Nov. 30 is your last chance to get a glimpse of the International Space Station (ISS) as it flies around the Earth this year. You don’t even need a telescope to view it. Weather permitting, it should be visible to the naked eye throughout the US and Canada. The largest man-made object in space will appear as a bright light in the sky, and is much brighter than an average satellite orbiting the planet. On a good night, the station rivals the planet Venus in brightness and can appear up to 25 times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. On Monday, it won’t be quite that bright, but at a magnitude of -2.0, it will still still stand out amongst Venus and the brightest stars.
If you want to get a glimpse before it’s gone, check out SpaceWeather.com to get viewing times for your location. Simply enter your zip code and then look for ISS. SpaceWeather.com also tracks other satellites, the space shuttles, and Hubble Telescope. In fact, Atlantis flew over during the Thanksgiving holiday and was also visible to the naked eye. If you’ve never seen a space shuttle glide across the sky at night, it’s a neat sight. You can bookmark SpaceWeather.com and the next time the shuttle undocks from the ISS you can find out when (or if) it will be viewable from your location. Pretty cool, huh?
