At 7:22pm this evening, we walked outside our front door, stood on the sidewalk and watched in awe as the International Space Station flew over our house. I grabbed the phone and called Dad, and as was we were watching the ISS cusp the top of our house, Dad said he was able to see it as well. Isn’t that both cool and crazy???!!!
Fun Facts about ISS:
The International Space Station is wider than a 747 airliner and has 15,000 cubic feet of living space–about the same as a three-bedroom house. Every 90 minutes, the ISS circles the Earth traveling 17,000 mph. When the ISS flies over, it shines brighter than every star in the sky. The ISS takes about 5 minutes to cross the entire sky. Why is the space station so bright? There are no lights on the outside of the ISS. Instead, the ISS glows because it reflects sunlight. While we see the ISS at night, 250 miles above Earth, where the ISS orbits, there’s plenty of sunlight. Sunlight hits the space station and creates a big reflection and bounces back down. (Information from http://www.skycalls.org/docs/issflyby.pdf)
This is similar to what the space station looked like from our street only brighter.