May 24, 2008
The light from the farthest visible stars set out on its journey long before your first birthday.
Space Station in the Sun
Birthday · May 24, 2008
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published May 24, 2008. Credit: Dirk Ewers. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Still bathed in sunlight, the International Space Station tracked through night skies above Hombressen, Germany on May 12. From a range of at least 360 kilometers, astronomer Dirk Ewers was able to record an impressively sharp video sequence of the passage with a small telescope, using some of the individual frames to construct this composite image. Sporting solar arrays, the station's integrated truss structure is nearly 90 meters long. The ATV Jules Verne is docked with the station, while the space station itself is orbiting at aproximately 27,800 kilometers per hour (17,200 mph). A complete video sequence is available as a 1 megabyte mpeg file or avi file.
Image credit: Dirk Ewers