The weatherman told me yesterday afternoon to look up at 9:21pm last night because the International Space Station would be floating right past the moon. I actually forgot about it until 9:10pm when I looked up at the sky anyway (because I do that a lot), saw the moon, and rememebered the ISS was about to pass over. SO, I sat down and turned my eyes up towards the moon. At 9:20pm, I saw it pass right by the moon. To tell you the truth, it wasn't all that impressive... probably because I'm in Boston with lots of light pollution, and there were scattered clouds about.
Then, the really cool thing happened. I was sitting on my porch with my friend John a few minutes later. We were discussing the space station and how long it might take it to orbit the earth. I looked up, and saw what I thought was the space station or some other satilite. I pointed it out to John, and right at that moment, it lit up very brightly for a few seconds!
John and I were perplexed for a few moments. Then it hit us. That was the space shuttle Atlantis!!! I knew that it had been docked with the ISS until Tuesday night when it left to begin its re-orbit in preparation for landing on Thursday. The brightening we saw was one of the re-orbit burns. The shuttle must decrease its speed as it prepares to land (while docked with the ISS, they are orbiting at a speed of 5 miles per second!). What an unexpected treat!!
1 comment:
Dammit, you lucky girl you! I was at the beach last night, left at about 9:15. Before that I was taking pictures of the sunset and then later...the MOON! :(
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