Overheard on the Web, and other Web links From The Herald's Research Editor
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Watching the shuttle
Last night we were sitting outside and looking at the stars, and wondering: would the Space Shuttle pass in view any time during its voyage? Of course, there's help from NASA: Realtime Tracking draws a map of the earth and shows you exactly where the shuttle and the International Space Station are in relation. Right now the shuttle is over the Indian Ocean and the ISS over New Zealand. I had no idea how fast they move; a few minutes ago the shuttle was over South America and the ISS over the Indian Ocean. Looks like the shuttle has made one pass over North America since.
If you want to know what time you can go out and see the shuttle (or ISS) overhead, check out NASA's Sightings site. There's a Javascript application to show you, or you can check a text index by city. Here's Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Unfortunately the shuttle won't be over the east coast during dark hours until this weekend, and it will require getting up really early in the morning, and hoping it's not cloudy.
Want to keep up on other things going around the earth? NASA's J-Track tracks satellites, Hubble and Mir. (Thanks to Gary Price for the hints.) posted by liz at 11:12 AM
Elisabeth (Liz) Donovan was a Herald librarian for 10 years, and Research Editor for 13 years. She came to The Herald in 1981, following several years at the
Washington Post. She started blogging in 2000, with a news research blog, followed by the blog at Herald.com in 2003. A frequent speaker and writer on news research, she was honored in 2004 by the
News Division of the Special Libraries Association for her contributions to
the field.