The Humanity Star

• The Humanity Star by QuantumG on 28 Jan, 2018 21:36
• Visible from space with the naked eye, the Humanity Star is a highly reflective satellite that blinks brightly across the night sky to create a shared experience for everyone on the planet.
  
  Find out when it will pass over you: http://www.thehumanitystar.com/
  
  
• #1 by CameronD on 29 Jan, 2018 00:02
• Well, it never seems to be there whenever I look up..  I guess we have a big sky. 
• #2 by QuantumG on 29 Jan, 2018 00:32
• Yup, there's a tracker on the website. Put your location in and it tells you how long you'll have to wait for an optimal viewing and how long it will last.
  
  25 days until it's over Auckland for 2 minutes.
  
  25 days until it's over Moscow for 2 minutes 30 seconds.
  
  28 days until it's over London for 2 minutes.
  
  28 days until it's over Paris for 2 minutes 30 seconds.
  
  30 days until it's over Sydney for 2 minutes 30 seconds.
  
  34 days until it's over New York for 2 minutes 30 seconds.
  
  36 days until it's over LA for 5 minutes.
  
  40 days until it's over Tokyo for 4 minutes.
  
  etc
  
• #3 by saliva_sweet on 29 Jan, 2018 13:39
• Quote

  You will not be able to see the satellite within the next 2087 hours. Please check again later.

  
  My view of the cosmos remains undefiled unfortunately.   
• #4 by Ictogan on 29 Jan, 2018 14:00
• Quote from: saliva_sweet on 29 Jan, 2018 13:39

  Quote

  You will not be able to see the satellite within the next 2087 hours. Please check again later.

  
  My view of the cosmos remains undefiled unfortunately.   
  

  You should still be able to look it up on www.heavens-above.com/.
• #5 by speedevil on 29 Jan, 2018 18:58
• 
  The ball appears to be ~1.2m in diameter.
  The facets are close to triangles 30cm on a side, and appear flat.
  Call it .05m^2.
  
  Assuming one facet is wholly illuminated by the sun, and reflecting it to an observer at 45 degrees, that is around 50W of light into a circle varying from at perigee around 3km to at apogee 5km in diameter. (the sun is conveniently 1/100th of a radian in diameter, which makes this easy)
  
  That is between around 7.5 microwatts per square meter, and 2.5uw/m^2.
  Conveniently, 1nW/m^2 is magnitude 4 (a clearly visible star with dark adapted eyes), making this 7500-2500 times as bright, or visible magnitude (two orders of magnitude is 5 visible magnitudes) from around -5 to -3 or so.
  
  This would put it peaking from about the brightest Venus gets to the brightest Jupiter gets.
  
  It is noticably dimmer than Iridium flash peaks.
  Due to the geometry, it's not going to be able to illuminate the whole ground track at once, and will either flicker or flash, averaging somewhat dimmer.
  
• #6 by deruch on 29 Jan, 2018 21:14
• Should have made it a big 20 sided die, with only 1 side reflective.  So, if you saw a flash it was because you had rolled a 1 or a 20, depending on your opinion on the thing.
• #7 by hootowls on 08 Mar, 2018 16:22
• I've been telling people about local viewing opportunities using thehumanitystar.com tracking page but the results using heavens-above.com for the same location give completly different rise times and pass directions for the same viewing location.  Not even close.  I'm a bit confused what to think.
• #8 by Thomas Dorman on 21 Mar, 2018 11:50
• This morning's pass of Humanity Star 2018-3-21 @ 11:07:45 UT at a distance of 384 Km. Humanity Star will soon decay in the next 1 or 2 days. It was predicted to stay in orbit for 9 months but clearly had far more atmospheric drag than forecasted.
  
  https://www.thehumanitystar.com/
  http://www.aerospace.org/humanity-star/
  
  
• #9 by GWH on 21 Mar, 2018 17:12
• Hoping I can catch it tomorrow morning, a pass is scheduled still.
  
  I had problems with viewing it before with the event being added to my calendar an orbit behind. 
• #10 by Johnnyhinbos on 24 Mar, 2018 10:57
• Huh. Well isn’t that symbolic...