Trivia 8 of 10
8. On the Space Station, the Sun rises about 16 times a day
The International Space Station orbits the Earth roughly every 90 minutes. That is why those on board see the Sun rise and set about 16 times every 24 hours.
A trip around the world in an hour and a half
The station flies about 400 kilometers above the Earth at roughly 28,000 kilometers per hour. At that speed, it completes an orbit in just over an hour and a half, half over the sunlit part of the Earth and half over the night side.
With each crossing from the dark side to the light, the crew sees a sunrise, and on the way back, a sunset. There are about 45 minutes of day and 45 of night, all the time.
To avoid disrupting their bodies, astronauts follow a fixed clock, Universal Time, with set times for sleeping, eating and working. The windows are covered during sleep periods, and the interior lighting helps maintain the rhythm.
The station has been continuously occupied since November 2000. It is the largest object humans have ever put into orbit, roughly the size of an American football field, and on some nights it can be seen with the naked eye as a bright point crossing the sky in a few minutes.
Did you know? Astronauts float, but the gravity at the station's altitude is still about 90% of what exists on the surface. They float because they are in constant free fall around the Earth.
