Space Station will pass through on Ahmedabad Sky on Friday evening: to be visible for six minutes

Ahmedabad

Get ready to see the glimpses of the International Space Station (ISS), commonly known as Space Station, in naked eye as a slow-moving, bright white dot, which is flying over Gujarat sky on Friday evening from 6.52 pm to 6.58 pm.

It will visible from north-west direction and moving speedily towards south-east direction. This six minutes journey would be just 11 minutes after the Sun set on the western sky on Friday evening. The sun set time on Friday is 6.41 pm. The maximum brightness and visibility would be at 6:55 pm.

The Space Station takes about ten minutes to move from one horizon to another, and will only be visible part of that time due to moving into or out of the Earth’s shadow.

Because of the size 110m x 100m x 30m and of its reflective surface area, the Space Station is the brightest man-made object in the sky excluding flares similar to Venus.

The Space Station flies 400 km high at speeds that defy gravity – literally. At 28 800 km/h it only takes 90 minutes for the weightless laboratory to make a complete circuit of Earth. Astronauts working and living on the Station experience 16 sunrises and sunsets each day.

The Space Station serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars.

The ISS is the largest spacecraft ever built, and its assembly has been ongoing for more than a decade. Its first component, the Zarya control module that provided the station’s initial propulsion and power, was launched on 20 November 1998 and after two years, it was ready for the astronauts to work on board. India borne American astronaut Sunita Williams holds the record for longest spaceflight by a woman in the Space Station. The Space Station will continue functioning up to 2024.

Senior Scientist at Gujarat Science City Narottam Sahu said, “We request one and all to look into the evening sky and to catch the glimpses of Space Station in their terrace and open ground.Happy viewing International Space Station on Friday evening !”

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