On the ISS, the sun rises sixteen times before you sleep.
On the ISS, the sun rises sixteen times before you sleep. Not because the laws of physics have gone strange — because the station is moving so fast that it laps the entire planet roughly every 90 minutes. That works out to about 7.66 kilometres every single second, or around 28,000 kilometres per hour. At 400 kilometres above the surface, there is no gradual dawn, no long evening. Daylight simply snaps on, then off, then on again — sixteen full cycles while people on the ground experience one ordinary day. Astronauts have lived up there continuously since November 2000, which means some have had to actively ignore their own body clocks and follow a set schedule just to stay sane. Time, up there, is entirely a choice. Follow Deep Field Vault for more of the universe.