Can I see the ISS from where I am right now?

You can see it when it's above your horizon and in sunlight while your own sky is dark. It has no lights you could see from the ground. You see it because it reflects sunlight. That's why passes bunch up in the couple of hours after sunset and before sunrise. You're in the dark by then, but the station is about 420 km up and still in the Sun. The observer panel on this page checks this for your location if you ask it to. It works out how high the station is above your horizon and which way to look. It reads the feed's sunlit flag and works out how high the Sun is for you. One number is our own choice: below 10 degrees up, the panel treats the station as hidden behind trees and rooftops. It only answers for right now. To find out when the station next comes over you, use NASA's Spot The Station.

Where is the ISS right now?

At 2026-11-11 07:45:15Z the International Space Station was at 48.56° S, 62.09° E, 435 km above sea level and moving at 27,543 km/h. It goes round once about every 92 minutes and covers about 7.7 km a second, so any one position is only good for a few seconds. This page asks the same public feed for a new position every five seconds.

What is the Kp index?

Kp, the planetary K-index, is a 0 to 9 scale of how much the solar wind is shaking Earth's magnetic field. It's averaged over three hours from magnetometers around the world. 0 to 3 is quiet, 4 is active, and 5 or more is a geomagnetic storm. That's when aurora shows up well away from the poles. Right now it's 0.67, which is quiet. At this level, aurora stays near the poles.

How far south does the aurora reach at this Kp?

Aurora forms a ring around the geomagnetic pole, which isn't the same as the pole on a map. The ring reaches further from the pole as Kp goes up. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center publishes this as a table. It runs from about 66.5 degrees geomagnetic at Kp 0 to about 48.1 degrees at Kp 9. Your geomagnetic latitude isn't the number on a map, because Earth's magnetic field is tilted. That's why northern Britain gets aurora that places at the same latitude across the Pacific don't. The observer panel on this page converts your coordinates and compares them with the edge for the current Kp. Then it tells you the gap in degrees. It's a check against a table, so it isn't a forecast and it doesn't know about cloud, moonlight or streetlights. To find out if you'll see anything, use NOAA's 30-minute aurora forecast.

Is an asteroid going to hit Earth?

No. NASA says no known asteroid has a significant chance of hitting Earth in the next hundred years. Its Sentry system checks every catalogued object for impact risk. Objects pass closer than the Moon fairly often, and that's what the close-approach list on this page shows. Some of them are labelled 'potentially hazardous'. That only means the object is big enough to matter and its orbit comes within 0.05 astronomical units of Earth's. It doesn't mean it's coming at us.

SYS // LIVE CONDITIONS

Live space conditions

Four readings: where the International Space Station is, what the Sun is doing to Earth’s magnetic field, what’s passing close today and what launches next. Each card gives you the number and says what it means. The full detail is folded away further down if you want it.

Space station

IN ORBIT

435KM UP

Over 48.56° S, 62.09° E, at mid-southern latitudes, at 27,543 km/h. It goes round the planet every 92 minutes.

Geomagnetic

QUIET

0.7KP, OF 9

At this level, aurora stays near the poles.

Closest today

ROUTINE

53.6× MOON'S DISTANCE

2013 VO5 is the nearest of 5 tracked objects passing today. It's 53.6 times further away than the Moon. They all miss.

Next launch

SCHEDULED

T-··:··:··

Long March 2D | Unknown Payload from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China.

Out there now

ALL SEVEN PLANETS

EARTH

4 TRACKED

ISSTRACKED

Finding the nearest town or city to the station… 435 km up, in sunlight.

Altitude: 435 km
Speed: 27,543 km/h
Lighting: sunlight
Footprint: 2,290 km

View

Drag the globe to spin it, or use the view buttons. The gold line is the ground track. It’s dashed where the station has been and solid where it’s going. The cyan circle is its horizon footprint. If you’re anywhere inside it, the station is above your skyline right now. Positions come from a live feed. The track is worked out from the current fix and covers the hour and a half shown. It won’t predict a pass.

Position, altitude, speed and orbital period of each tracked object
Object	Over	Altitude	Speed	Orbit
ISSThe International Space Station. Crewed continuously since 2000.	48.5°S 62.6°E	430 km	27,571 km/h	93 min
TiangongChina's space station, tracked by its Tianhe core module. Its first crew arrived in 2021.	37.2°N 102.5°E	393 km	27,632 km/h	92 min
HubbleThe Hubble Space Telescope, observing since 1990.	18.8°S 154.4°W	470 km	27,467 km/h	94 min
TerraNASA's Terra Earth-observing satellite, flying since 1999.	80.4°N 137.4°E	709 km	27,041 km/h	99 min

THE STATION IS LIVE FROM ITS OWN FEED · THE OTHERS ARE COMPUTED FROM PUBLISHED ORBITAL ELEMENTS UP TO 11 H OLD · MEASURED ACCURACY 14.5 KM OF GROUND TRACK AGAINST AN INDEPENDENT PROPAGATOR · SOURCE CELESTRAK

WHERE THAT IS

LOOKING DOWN FROM THE NORTH

Every angle here is real. This is where the planets are right now, seen from above.

Distances are squashed onto a log scale. Neptune is 78 times further out than Mercury, so a true-scale drawing this size would put the four inner planets inside one pixel. The order and the angles are exact. Only the spacing is squashed.

Nothing seems to move, because at this scale it barely does. Neptune covers a fifth of a degree in a month. Speed the clock up with the buttons and you’ll see the inner planets race while the outer ones hardly move. That’s Kepler’s third law.

OBSERVER FIX

AWAITING OPT-IN

FROM WHERE YOU ARE STANDING

Is the station over your horizon?

Share your location and this panel tells you if the ISS is above your skyline right now. It uses the same fix as the tracker. You get how high it is, which way to look and how far away it is. It also says if the station is lit and if your sky is dark enough to see it. Then it checks your latitude against how far the aurora reaches at the current Kp.

WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR POSITION

Our code keeps it in this browser tab’s memory and nowhere else. It never reaches our servers. Nothing is written to storage or a cookie, and we don’t send it in any request.
It’s only used for sums on this page: the distance to the point under the station, which way to look, how high the Sun is for you, and your geomagnetic latitude.
Clearing it, closing the tab or reloading the page removes it. There’s nothing left to delete afterwards.
Nothing reads your position on its own. The button above is the only thing that asks, and your browser asks you as well.
Once worked out, your coordinates show on screen as ordinary text. This site also runs advertising and affiliate scripts from other companies. We don’t give them your position, but we can only speak for our own code, not theirs. Clearing the fix takes it off the page.

DEEP FIELD SCAN

2026-11-11

NOT CLEARED HERE

This picture isn't credited to NASA alone, so we can't republish it. NASA's page has it in full.

NGC 4449: Small Galaxy, Big Impact

Don’t judge a galaxy by its size. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 100,000 light years across. This huge expanse of space contains hundreds of billions of stars! The smallest galaxies, called dwarf galaxies, are about 1/10th the size of the Milky Way and only contain a few billion stars. They are also the most common type of galaxy in the whole universe. Today’s image shows one such dwarf galaxy, NGC 4449, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 4449 and similar dwarf galaxies are missing more oxygen than models predict. This suggests their stellar winds and supernovae are surprisingly effective at blowing away oxygen and other heavy elements. Turns out these tiny galaxies may play a big role in spreading heavy elements — the building blocks of stars, planets, and life — throughout the universe! Tomorrow's picture: a date in Poland

CREDIT: NASA, ESA, A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA), and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

On NASA’s site

SPACE WEATHER

QUIET

PLANETARY K-INDEX

0.67

OF 9

0 QUIET5 STORM9 EXTREME

BANDQUIET

STORM SCALEBELOW G1

AURORAUNLIKELY

OBSERVED2026-11-11 03:00:00Z

Earth's magnetic field is calm. Aurora stays near the poles.

At this level, aurora stays near the poles. Kp is a 0 to 9 measure of how hard the solar wind is shaking Earth’s magnetic field. It’s averaged over three hours from magnetometers around the world. 5 or more is a geomagnetic storm.

The Kp index is 0.67, which is quiet. At this level, aurora stays near the poles. If you saw something you can’t place, check what was overhead →

Detail

Full station telemetry11 READINGS + GROUND TRACK

ISS GROUND TRACK

LIVE // 5S

180°W90°W0°90°E180°E

STATIONHORIZON FOOTPRINT 2,290 KM51.64° INCLINATION LIMIT

LATITUDE48.56° S

LONGITUDE62.09° E

ALTITUDE434.9 KM

ORBITAL SPEED27,543 KM/H

GROUND TRACK7.16 KM/S

ORBIT PERIOD93.1 MIN

HORIZON RADIUS2,290 KM

TRACKRESOLVING

EQUATOR N'BOUND—

SUNLIGHTDAYLIT

FIX TIME2026-11-11 07:45:15Z

The shaded ellipse is the horizon footprint. If you’re anywhere inside it, the station is above your skyline right now. Its size comes from the altitude in this fix, which gives a radius of 2,290 km right now, so it changes as the station climbs and drops. The orbit period and ground-track speed come from the same fix. The track direction comes from two fixes in a row, which is why it takes a few seconds to show up after the page loads. The equator time assumes a circular orbit at the published 51.64° inclination, so it’s a rough figure. The marker only pulses while a new fix is coming in. If it’s still and grey, the feed has gone quiet and the position has stopped updating. We don’t name the country or ocean underneath, and we don’t predict the next pass. Both would need data this page doesn’t have.

Near-Earth objects passing today5 TRACKED

NEAR-EARTH TRAFFIC

5 TRACKED

Near-Earth objects making their closest approach today, ordered by miss distance.
Object	Approach	Diameter	Miss distance	Lunar dist.	Velocity	Class
2013 VO5	2026-Nov-11	142–318 m	20,596,821 km	53.58 LD	98,907 km/h	PHA
138852 (2000 WN10)	2026-Nov-11	233–520 m	27,496,686 km	71.53 LD	59,268 km/h	ROUTINE
2019 UD13	2026-Nov-11	53–119 m	46,622,658 km	121.29 LD	91,383 km/h	ROUTINE
2018 LW5	2026-Nov-11	196–439 m	57,950,883 km	150.76 LD	50,118 km/h	ROUTINE
2015 TJ1	2026-Nov-11	78–174 m	66,107,678 km	171.98 LD	62,849 km/h	ROUTINE

One lunar distance is 384,400 km, the Moon’s average distance. Today’s closest pass is 53.58 LD. One of them carries the PHA label. That means it’s wider than about 140 m and its orbit can come within 0.05 AU of Earth’s. It doesn’t mean it will hit. Every object on this list has a miss distance.

CLOSE APPROACHES · TO SCALE BY DISTANCE

5 OBJECTS

The closest of these is 2013 VO5, at 53.6 lunar distances. That's 54 times further away than the Moon. Objects in red are labelled potentially hazardous. That's about their size and orbit, not about this pass.

DISTANCE TO SCALE ON A SQUARE-ROOT AXIS · DOT SIZE RANKS ESTIMATED DIAMETER, NOT TO SCALE · 4 BEYOND 64 LD NOT PLOTTED

5 tracked near-Earth objects make their closest approach today. The nearest is 2013 VO5, at 53.58 times the Moon's distance. Every one of them has a miss distance, so they all go past. Passes like this happen every day.

Where this data comes from6 FEEDS

The last fix put the ISS at 48.56° S, 62.09° E, at mid-southern latitudes. It was 435 km up and moving at 27,543 km/h at 2026-11-11 07:45:15Z. It goes round the planet every 92 minutes, so that fix is already old. The page asks for a new one every five seconds.

Coastlines, borders and place names on the globe come from Natural Earth, which is public domain. Positions come from a live feed and are shown as received. The ground track is worked out from the current fix, not from the full orbit, so it’s a good guide but it won’t predict a pass.

We also make Orbitburn, a gravity lander where every planet pulls on your ship. It's free on Android.Get it free on Google Play

Standing questions

Can I see the ISS from where I am right now?: You can see it when it's above your horizon and in sunlight while your own sky is dark. It has no lights you could see from the ground. You see it because it reflects sunlight. That's why passes bunch up in the couple of hours after sunset and before sunrise. You're in the dark by then, but the station is about 420 km up and still in the Sun. The observer panel on this page checks this for your location if you ask it to. It works out how high the station is above your horizon and which way to look. It reads the feed's sunlit flag and works out how high the Sun is for you. One number is our own choice: below 10 degrees up, the panel treats the station as hidden behind trees and rooftops. It only answers for right now. To find out when the station next comes over you, use NASA's Spot The Station.
Where is the ISS right now?: At 2026-11-11 07:45:15Z the International Space Station was at 48.56° S, 62.09° E, 435 km above sea level and moving at 27,543 km/h. It goes round once about every 92 minutes and covers about 7.7 km a second, so any one position is only good for a few seconds. This page asks the same public feed for a new position every five seconds.
What is the Kp index?: Kp, the planetary K-index, is a 0 to 9 scale of how much the solar wind is shaking Earth's magnetic field. It's averaged over three hours from magnetometers around the world. 0 to 3 is quiet, 4 is active, and 5 or more is a geomagnetic storm. That's when aurora shows up well away from the poles. Right now it's 0.67, which is quiet. At this level, aurora stays near the poles.
How far south does the aurora reach at this Kp?: Aurora forms a ring around the geomagnetic pole, which isn't the same as the pole on a map. The ring reaches further from the pole as Kp goes up. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center publishes this as a table. It runs from about 66.5 degrees geomagnetic at Kp 0 to about 48.1 degrees at Kp 9. Your geomagnetic latitude isn't the number on a map, because Earth's magnetic field is tilted. That's why northern Britain gets aurora that places at the same latitude across the Pacific don't. The observer panel on this page converts your coordinates and compares them with the edge for the current Kp. Then it tells you the gap in degrees. It's a check against a table, so it isn't a forecast and it doesn't know about cloud, moonlight or streetlights. To find out if you'll see anything, use NOAA's 30-minute aurora forecast.
Is an asteroid going to hit Earth?: No. NASA says no known asteroid has a significant chance of hitting Earth in the next hundred years. Its Sentry system checks every catalogued object for impact risk. Objects pass closer than the Moon fairly often, and that's what the close-approach list on this page shows. Some of them are labelled 'potentially hazardous'. That only means the object is big enough to matter and its orbit comes within 0.05 astronomical units of Earth's. It doesn't mean it's coming at us.