If you are seeing signs of cabin fever in your house, get outside and enjoy the night sky. There are some great events this week in the evening and before sunrise with some of the closest (therefore brightest) passes of the International Space Station (ISS) in a while.
Partly cloudy skies are expected with plenty of open sky to see the station. At 250+ miles in altitude, you'll have plenty of social distance from its three occupants (NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir along with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka).
ISS Passes
Don't miss Wednesday's pass, it will be particular bright. As the station comes into view it will be over New Orleans then following the southern Appalachian Mountains. Watch for it to slowly disappear from view as it passes into Earth's shadow over the Baltimore-Washington area.
Thursday's first pass will be very bright as well as the station passes directly over the North Carolina coast from Calabash to Currituck. Look for bright Venus in the west during the station's second pass.
Trio of planets
Look for a trio of planets, maybe even a quartet, in the southeast before sunrise. Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are just a few degrees apart. The waning crescent Moon joins them on Wednesday morning, they're hard to miss.
If your view relatively clear of homes or other buildings, you might be able to see Mercury low on the horizon to the left of Saturn.
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