Imagine being able to experience New Year’s Day more than once in just a span of 90 minutes between two consecutive celebrations.
It’d be pretty epic, right?
As crazy as it sounds, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) experience New Year’s Day not once, not twice, not thrice, but 16 times annually.
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You’re probably wondering how that’s even possible, but the science behind it is both interesting and simple.
In space, there’s a gap of just 90 minutes between New Year’s Day celebrations.
The reason being, it takes the ISS just 90 minutes to complete one revolution around Earth, with a 45-minute gap between a sunrise and subsequent sunset.
Because one day on Earth is equal to 24 hours or 1,440 minutes, and it takes the ISS takes 90 minutes to complete one orbit around the planet, the space station makes 1440/90 or 16 orbits.
The ISS’ crew witness 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets, meaning they experience New Year’s Day an incredible 16 times.
Witnessing 16 sunrises and sunsets isn’t exclusive to New Year’s Day, though.
It actually happens every day, but the fact the crew of the ISS get to welcome the new year 16 times is pretty special.
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One revolution around Earth by the ISS is equal to the circumference of the planet’s orbit, which is 42,650 kilometers (26,501 miles).
There are currently seven members aboard the space station, and how they celebrated Christmas in space was recently revealed in a video.
Part of Expedition 70, the crew includes European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Olev Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.
