Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are still stranded in space. But according to the information, their return is now possible only by next year. US space agency NASA said that the return of astronauts is not possible this year. Now the question is that when an astronaut is in space, how does he know about day and night. In simple language, how does any person know whether it is day or night on Earth.
Sunita trapped in space
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore reached the space station in June 2024 aboard a Boeing aircraft. Their return was postponed due to a malfunction in the capsule of Boeing Starliner. At the same time, NASA chief Bill Nelson says that both the astronauts will now have to return to Earth aboard SpaceX’s rocket. He told that the propulsion system of Starliner is faulty, in such a situation it is very risky for the astronauts to return to Earth through this spacecraft.
How will they know whether it is day or night
Now the question is that after staying in space for such a long time how will Suniti Williams know whether it is day or night? Because on Earth we humans can easily detect day and night, but on International Space Station it is a very difficult task to detect this as compared to Earth. Let us tell you that on ISS the astronauts experience 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets during one Earth day. The ISS orbits the Earth at a speed of 27,600 km/h in an elliptical trajectory at an average altitude of 400 km and completes one revolution in about 90 minutes.
The ISS orbits the Earth 16 times in 24 hours and therefore astronauts on board the ISS see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets compared to Earthlings. During its orbit, the spacecraft spends about half the time in sunlight and the rest in the Earth’s shadow. Thus, the ISS experiences about 45 minutes of daylight and 45 minutes of darkness in each rotation. At the same time, the ISS is set to Universal Coordinated Time to divide the time into day and night. A typical workday for an astronaut on the ISS begins at 06:00 am UTC and ends at 09:30 pm UTC.
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