Without even needing to use a telescope, observing the International Space Station is one of the most amazing activities of scientific admiration that you can do from the comfort of your home.
Bearing in mind that the ISS takes an hour and a half to go around the planet Earth , there are a series of tools that allow us to know in advance when it is going to be close to our location and where we have to direct our gaze to be able to appreciate its trajectory.
How to identify the International Space Station
The International Space Station ( ISS or ISS for its acronym in English) is a set of components assembled in space that has living space, laboratories and test areas, bathrooms, storage and includes systems that allow liquids and oxygen to be reused for consumption. human. It is located in low Earth orbit 370 kilometers from Earth and takes 90 minutes to go around the planet completely.
International Space Station seen from the SpaceX Crew Dragon
The space station looks like a plane or a very bright star moving across the sky, except it doesn’t have flashing lights or change direction. It also moves considerably faster than a typical commercial flight. Airplanes generally fly at about 600 miles per hour; the space station flies at 7.66 kilometers per second .
Considering that it is the third brightest element that can be seen in our sky, it is likely that you have once confused it with a shooting star. All sightings will occur a few hours before or after sunrise or sunset. This is the optimal viewing period as what we are actually seeing is the reflection of the sun off the station’s solar panels and contrasts with the darker sky.
ISS tracking websites and mobile apps
As we say, you can follow the orbit of the International Space Station and thus calculate what may be the best time to see it from your home. NASA has created a website where you can track the position of the station in real time, in addition to allowing you to configure your current location to receive alerts, either by email or SMS, about sightings of the ISS In our city.
The European Space Agency (ESA) also has a web page where we can see the predicted trajectories, as well as a reference point on Google Maps.
Position of the ISS in real time.
This same experience has been adapted to mobile applications , with a series of advantages over web pages, since the information established there includes a series of parameters such as the elevation above the horizon or the orientation to follow with the gaze.
These apps not only notify us in advance of the ISS passing through our area, but even show the exact position to look at through an integrated compass, serving as a great help so as not to miss the sighting within a short time. time we can have before the space station disappears from our field of vision.
Among the various options available, we have selected ISS Detector for Android and ISS Spotter for iOS, both free.
