Tonight my mom dragged me, my dad, and my dog out to the street so we could watch the space shuttle and the International Space Station glide across the night sky. Apparently, the shuttle just un-docked and the two are in orbit together and unusually visible from Earth. At first all we saw was Venus, but then there it was...a little row of blinking lights trailed by just one tiny light. They went by fast (they are travelling at 18,000 mph), and we watched them for just a couple minutes before they disappeared behind the mountains.
Dwarfed by the darkness, it was endearing to see them together--like a little brother following a big brother. I imagine it must be comforting up there to have a friend close by. Hurtling through space, bound by a single orbit, is kind of a nice way to think about friendship.
They will be visible again Wednesday night, check out the times at Nasa Skywatch here.
7 comments:
I like this post, ALOT. Great analogy. And I like that Mom is always hauling us around to view space stuff in the sky. If the spy thing didn't work out, maybe being an astronaut was plan B?
I was almost in tears knowing I missed it by about two minutes last night. They must have been running late because I was there, waiting, for a whole eight minutes.
So happy I'll get another shot!
Looking back on my first comment, did I just call her Mom? Strange, cuz everyone knows she's PAM. Doi.
We were supposed to see it at 9:26 here in Menlo Park (how dare something interupt SYTYCD) but the night sky hid it. shucks for tonight at least!
Well, SYTYCD does take priority. But every night they're in a different place in the sky. I almost missed them tonight because I was looking in the same place, but they were zooming South.
Watch for it again. And then show James a picture of the space station. He'll freak out!
I love that picture it looks like a witch and witchette zooming across the moon. I was out at 10:56pm gazing in the SW sky only so see cloud cover:( BOO!
I think the photo looks kind of like ET--the part where they're riding a bike through the sky silhouetted against the moon.
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