For people living on earth, sunrise occurs once and sunset occurs once in 24 hours. But imagine how day and night would be for the astronauts who live in the space station. We are saying this because sunset never happens in space. Actually, the Earth revolves around the Sun. According to this rotation, the part of the Earth that is directly in line with the Sun is day and the part that is behind the Sun is night.
Who lives in the International Space Station
On an average, there are 5 to 6 astronauts living in the space station outside the Earth at all times. These include astronauts from the American space agency NASA, Russia’s Roscosmos, Europe’s ESA, Japan’s JAXA and Canada’s space agency CSA. Now the question arises that how do these people know about day and night.
Let us tell you, the International Space Station is located at an average altitude of 400 kilometers from the Earth. This space station is not stable at one place, rather the space station continuously revolves around the Earth on an elliptical path.
How do astronauts know day and night?
The International Space Station i.e. ISS revolves around the Earth at a speed of 27,600 kilometers per hour. Talking about time, it completes one revolution around the earth in 90 minutes. That is, the way half of the Earth remains in front of the Sun half of the time and half of the time behind the Sun. Similarly, the International Space Station also remains in sunlight for about half the time and in the Earth’s shadow the rest of the time.
That means the space station remains in darkness for approximately 45 minutes and in light for 45 minutes in one revolution. That means, in 24 hours, sunrise occurs 16 times and sunset occurs 16 times in the space station. However, the sleeping room for astronauts in the space station has many hi-tech arrangements. This means that even if there is light outside, there is a complete night atmosphere in the room and in this environment the astronauts can sleep comfortably.
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