If the weather cooperates, Honolulu will be in for a spectacular pass of the International Space Station on Friday evening.
The space station will rise in the southwest at 7:11 p.m., just to the left of Mars and the constellation Scorpio.
It will arc to the left, passing just above the waxing gibbous moon between 7:14 and 7:15 p.m.
At 7:15, at its highest point, it will be about halfway up the sky in the southeast. It will blink out of sight just over a minute later.
Orbiting at 17,250 mph at an altitude of 258 miles, the space station is visible against the evening or early morning sky when it reflects sunlight. It has a steady apparent speed and brightness, and makes no sound.
The best viewing will be away from the light pollution of urban Honolulu, but it will be visible even in town if the sky is clear.
There will be another bright pass at 5:05 a.m. Saturday, when the space station will suddenly appear high in the southwest, just to the right of Orion, and move to the left under Orion and Canis Major.
Canis Major, Orion’s canine companion, has the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, but the space station will be noticeably brighter.
Currently aboard the station are two Americans, Navy Capt. Barry E. "Butch" Wilmore and Navy Cmdr. Reid Wiseman; German astronaut Alexander Gerst; and three Russians: air force Cols. Max Suraev and Alexander Samokutyaev, and flight engineer Elena Serova. The crew is flying with a tank full of zebra fish to see whether the fish lose muscle mass in space the same way humans do.
On Oct. 8, meanwhile, a different space object will light up the northern sky.
Just after 7:41 p.m. an Iridium satellite will catch the rays of the sun and brighten dramatically before fading. The show will happen just to the left of the constellation Cassiopeia, which looks like a bent letter M.
The fleet of 66 Iridium satellites, which have large shiny antennas, provides voice and data coverage for phones and pagers. They orbit at 17,000 mph at an altitude of 485 miles.
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