Don’t Forget to Look Up This Week

With the great, excellent news about the successful landing of Phoenix on Mars last evening, and the cool images and news coming from that mission, it’s easy to forget there are things going on quite a bit closer to home this week.

The International Space Station (ISS) is continuing its series daily (evening) multiple flyovers. Using the link on the right-hand menu for Heavens Above Grand Rapids predictions, you can see that each night has 2-4 visible passes by the station, each one brighter than most of the stars in the night sky. All you need is clear skies (and we all know who to blame if there aren’t clear skies, right?), and the predictions to see it. And if you want to see it really bright, like last week Friday, make sure you watch on June 4th, 6th, and 8th, as the station will outshine every object in the night sky as it passes over. Plus, by then the space shuttle Discovery will have arrived, adding to the brightness.

Speaking of the shuttle, it’s scheduled to launch on Saturday the 31st at 5.02pm EDT. Discovery will be heading to the ISS to deliver the largest payload to date, the Kibo module.

Stay tuned right here for the latest on the Phoenix mission, the space station, the shuttle, and other things of interest in the night sky and space. We’ll have the latest, most accurate, and up-to-date information available, which you won’t get anywhere else.

Just another word about the Heavens Above site. If you’re not in Grand Rapids, or want to get a more specific location for your area, you can do that on the site as well. you just need your latitude and longitude. We have predictions for the Veen Observatory, and the author even has predictions for his front yard.

So go and and enjoy the night sky.