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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from house Stuff Works dot com where

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Speaker 1: smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, is

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Speaker 1: there any way to see satellites that are in orbit?

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Speaker 1: If you are a neighbor has a satellite dish sitting

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Speaker 1: in the yard to pick up television signals, then you

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Speaker 1: know where at least one orbiting satellite is located. The

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Speaker 1: dish is pointed right at it. TV satellites unfortunately live

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Speaker 1: in geosecretous orbits approximately twenty two thousand miles away, so

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Speaker 1: it's impossible to see them unless you have a really

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Speaker 1: big telescope. However, there are lots of satellites that pass

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Speaker 1: overhead in a syncretous orbits, and there are only two

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Speaker 1: hundred or three hundred miles away. If you live in

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Speaker 1: a place that has a very clear sky where for example,

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Speaker 1: you can see the Milky Way at night, simply lie

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Speaker 1: on your back on a moonless night and look carefully.

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Speaker 1: Occasionally you'll see something that looks like a star, but

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Speaker 1: it's moving. That's a satellite. This technique works especially well

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Speaker 1: on a boat in the Caribbean close to the equator.

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Speaker 1: The International Space Station is so large that it's extremely

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Speaker 1: easy to see. You just need to know when to look.

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Speaker 1: There are many satellite tracking sites on the web that

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Speaker 1: will tell you when and where to look. Jump into

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Speaker 1: Google and you can find them. Do you have any

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Speaker 1: ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send

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Speaker 1: me an email at podcast at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, go

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Speaker 1: to how stuff works dot com and be sure to

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Speaker 1: check out the brain stuff blog on the how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com home page.