The Sun That Rises Sixteen Times a Day

“Byeol-i, that’s strange. The sun just went down, so why is it rising again?”

“That happens a lot out here, Hyeongseop. Do you know how many times the sun rises and sets in one day on the International Space Station?”

“Just once, right? Up in the morning, down in the evening.”

“That’s true on Earth. But the station circles the Earth so fast that it completes one full loop about every 90 minutes.”

“Once every 90 minutes? So that means…?”

“Every time it goes around, you see one sunrise and one sunset. Which means in a single day, you see sixteen of them.”

“Sixteen?! Astronauts must love that — sixteen beautiful moments like that, every single day.”

“Exactly. But here’s something else interesting. Because it moves so fast, a real ‘day’ up here doesn’t match Earth’s clock at all. Inside the station, everyone just agrees on a separate schedule to live by.”

“So up in space, you can’t tell time by the sunrise.”

“Right, it happens far too often for that. That’s why astronauts usually keep track of the day using Greenwich Mean Time, the same time used around the whole world.”

“Then maybe sunrises stop feeling special to astronauts, since they see so many.”

“Funny enough, it’s the exact opposite. From what astronauts say, they never get tired of it. A lot of them say the moment a thin blue line spreads across Earth’s edge and the sun comes up, it feels just as beautiful as the very first time.”

“I bet it does. Even the one I just saw looked amazing.”

Hyeongseop looked back out the window. The edge of the Earth was slowly turning a bright orange. In just a little while, another sunrise would begin.

“Byeol-i, if I become an astronaut, I want to see all sixteen sunrises in one day.”

“You just might, Hyeongseop. Once you’re flying with Star-Maru, this very moment could already be one of those sixteen.”