The International Space Station

Yesterday I was at the YMCA working out and watching the news when I heard that the International space station would be passing overhead at 6:13pm. They showed on the news what to look for and where to look.

I thought about it and decided that it would be fun to take the kids out to see it. Caroline has been studying the planets lately and I thought they would love to see it. I started looking after dinner to figure out which direction we needed to look, and realized that the number of tall trees surrounding our house would make it difficult to see anything (and it was much worse to try and not see it than not tell them about it in the first place). Matt suggested going to a park near our house and watching it from the baseball fields--so we hurried and jumped in the car and headed over.

We got there a few minutes early and walked to the edge of the park. I easily found the two planets that the news had said to look for (Mars and Venus) and I pointed them out to the kids--I think they might have been more excited to see the planets than the space station.

Luckily we didn't have to wait too long and we saw the light that was the space station. It moved from one horizon, over our heads, to the other side of the horizon--the kids loved it. The whole process lasted 4 minutes and we headed back home. Carter and Caroline couldn't stop talking about it and declared it one of the best nights of their whole lives.

Here we are at the park, just before the space station appeared
it first appeared on the horizon behind the kids as they stand in the picture.
(not the greatest picture, but not bad for a cell phone in the dark!)