Space station to grace isle skies tonight
NASA IMAGE CAPTURES BIG ISLAND | Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured this image Oct. 7 over the Pacific Ocean. While most of the Hawaiian Islands are covered by clouds, the Big Island is visible at lower center. A Russian Soyuz, foreground, and a Russian Progress vehicle are docked at the massive space station.
The International Space Station will sail over Honolulu just after sunset tonight.
Weather permitting, the space station will be visible high in the southwestern sky around 6:45 p.m.
Appearing as a bright, nonblinking light, the ISS will rise in the northwest just before 6:40 p.m. and move to the left, passing at its highest point just under the bright star Altair in the constellation Aquila, the eagle. It will blink out in the southeast as it enters the earth’s shadow at 6:50 p.m.
Jupiter and the moon, nearly full, will be visible in the east.
For early risers the space station will make another bright pass on Nov. 15, rising in the southwest at about 6:03 a.m. and traveling up to the right, passing in front of the moon at 6:06. It will set in the northeast about 6:09 a.m.
At an altitude of 242 miles, the space station travels at a speed of roughly 17,500 mph. It is visible just before dawn or after sunset when it is illuminated by the sun.
Aboard are two Americans, mission commander Mike Fossum and flight engineer Dan Burbank; three Russians, Sergei Volkov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov; and one Japanese astronaut, Satoshi Furukawa.
