THERE are a number of opportunities to see the International Space Station (ISS) in the Isle of Man night sky starting tonight (Friday).
Depending on weather conditions, the station will be visible low in the sky in various positions in the early morning and evenings through to early March and can easily be seen with the naked eye.
The ISS is one of the brightest images in the Isle of Man night time sky. It appears as a steady white pinpoint of light moving across the sky for up to 2 minutes.
The best passes of the ISS are most likely to be tonight (Friday) at 19.45 and twice on Saturday at 18.36 and 20.11 - low in the south western sky. Sightings of the ISS from the Isle of Man will be visible through to March 7th.
The ISS is operated as a joint venture between five different worldwide space agencies from the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia. Its cost over 30 years has been estimated at $100 billion, making it easily the most expensive object ever made by human beings.
It is regularly visited by Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the USA space shuttle more than 200 miles above the earth. Astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations have so far visited the ISS, each orbit taking around 90 minutes to complete.
Construction of the ISS began in 1998 and work remains in progress. It is by far the largest satellite which has ever been in orbit around the planet and serves as a research laboratory with a microgravity environment where scientists can conduct various experiments which would be very difficult to emulate on earth.
