• Question: what does an orbital sunrise look like?

    Asked by cochrana to Kevin, Katie, Jon, Floris, Delma, Adrian on 7 Jan 2016. This question was also asked by joestanley1912, iaaukadmin.
    • Photo: Adrianos Golemis

      Adrianos Golemis answered on 7 Jan 2016:

      I think it looks a bit different than what we see on the Earth as an Astronaut can behold the entirety of our planet below them as the sun rises. Other than that it would probably be the same although Astronauts on the ISS make so many orbits around the globe every day that they witness as many as 60 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours!

    • Photo: Katie Hassell

      Katie Hassell answered on 8 Jan 2016:

      The ISS orbits every 90 minutes, so around 16 sunrises a day.
      You’d be able to see the Sun creeping around the edge of the Earth, lighting up the atmosphere; I think one large difference would be that as you’re outside the atmosphere then you wouldn’t see as much of the pink to red sky effect, as that is caused by the atmosphere bending and filtering sunlight.

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