The International Space Station (ISS) will be visible in Southern Africa today.
The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has encouraged people to turn their attention away from the World Cup for a few minutes to experience the “rare sighting”.
The DST says the ISS will be visible in Southern Africa today between 18:25 and 18:29, with the US's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) saying it is visible to the naked eye.
Just four minutes
“It will be possible to spot the ISS from Johannesburg on many occasions between 19 and 27 June. However, it will be at its brightest on 21 June. It will rise in the south at 10 degrees above the horizon at 18:25 and orbit directly overhead towards the northwest,” says the department.
It adds that at exactly 18:22 it will be visible low in the south-west from Cape Town and will pass overhead at 18:25. It will also be visible from Gauteng, low in the southwest.
“Similarly, it will be visible all over southern Africa, from the Eastern Cape to Namibia, disappearing at 18:30 over Mozambique.”
The DST says the ISS will resemble a bright planet moving through the sky.
Nasa's World Cup
Using Nasa Earth Observatory images, the space administrator has captured the 2010 soccer World Cup from a “new perspective”.
It has taken images from all 32 participating countries using different apparatuses, including the ISS, telescopes and satellites.
The images include skies and seas in Greece, a reservoir in Cameroon, a mountain in China and the Soccer City stadium in SA.
“The Advanced Land Imager on Nasa's Earth Observing-1 satellite captured the natural-colour image of the stadium,” says Nasa.
16-strong
Nasa says the ISS is the only National Laboratory in microgravity. It is the first space station built as an international cooperative project involving 16 countries, according to the DST.
Nasa adds that these countries are the US, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, UK, Sweden and Norway.
The ISS is an “internationally developed research facility that is being assembled in low-earth orbit. It is the largest and most complex international scientific project in history,” says the DST.
It adds that on-orbit construction of the station began in 1998 and is expected to be completed in 2011.
Space lab
“The ISS is primarily a research laboratory and is a long-term space project, where extended studies are conducted,” explains the DST.
It works in the pursuit of the advancement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, according to Nasa.
“We will make revolutionary discoveries and establish a permanent international presence of humans in space, to advance the exploration of the solar system and enable commerce in space.”
To the moon
The ISS is more powerful and four times larger than any human space craft ever built, says Nasa.
It is 171 feet long, 240 feet wide, 90 feet high, weighs 197 tons and has 15 000 cubic feet of habitable living space, which is equivalent to a three-bedroom house, according to Nasa.
“ISS plans include micro gravity science laboratories from four space agencies. ISS flies in an orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees, approximately 240 miles above the Earth, in a path that covers 90% of the world's population.”
Nasa adds that the station travels at the speed of 17 500mph, and covers the equivalent distance to the moon and back in a day.
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