Imagine watching the sun rise sixteen times in a single day.
Imagine watching the sun rise sixteen times in a single day. That is exactly what astronauts on the International Space Station experience — not as a metaphor, but as ordinary Tuesday routine.
The station races around Earth at about 7.66 kilometres every second. That works out to roughly 28,000 kilometres per hour — fast enough to complete a full orbit in just 90 minutes. Sixteen orbits. Sixteen sunrises. Sixteen sunsets.
All of this happens from around 400 kilometres up, where the planet curves away beneath you and the terminator line — the edge of night — sweeps across continents in minutes.
Humans have been living inside that rhythm continuously since November 2000. More than two decades without a single day the station went unoccupied.
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