SYS // LIVE CONDITIONS
Live space conditions
The International Space Station was last fixed at 45.23° N, 165.68° E — at mid-northern latitudes — 418 km up and moving at 27,609 km/h, timestamped 2026-08-27 19:25:24Z. It laps the planet every 92 minutes, so that fix is already behind; the live tracker on this page re-reads the position every five seconds. The planetary K-index is 0.67 — quiet. Aurora should stay inside the polar circle tonight.
7 tracked near-Earth objects make their closest approach today, the nearest of them 523609 (2005 PJ2 at 18.41 lunar distances. Nothing on the list is on a collision course; close approaches are routine, and these are the ordinary traffic of the inner solar system.
ISS GROUND TRACK
The dashed gold rails mark the 51.64° orbital inclination; the station never crosses them. The shaded ellipse is the horizon footprint — stand anywhere inside it and the ISS is above your skyline right now.
SPACE WEATHER
PLANETARY K-INDEX
0.67
OF 9
The magnetosphere is settled. Nothing to see and nothing to worry about.
Aurora should stay inside the polar circle tonight. Kp is a 0–9 measure of how hard the solar wind is shaking Earth’s magnetic field, averaged across a global network of magnetometers over three hours; 5 and above is a geomagnetic storm.
NEAR-EARTH TRAFFIC
| Object | Approach | Diameter | Miss distance | Lunar dist. | Velocity | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 523609 (2005 PJ2 | 2026-Aug-27 | 330–738 m | 7,077,378 km | 18.41 LD | 81,899 km/h | PHA |
| 2013 VJ11 | 2026-Aug-27 | 7–16 m | 13,745,154 km | 35.76 LD | 26,710 km/h | ROUTINE |
| 612346 (2002 GQ5 | 2026-Aug-27 | 173–387 m | 16,819,881 km | 43.76 LD | 49,404 km/h | ROUTINE |
| 2002 GQ5 | 2026-Aug-27 | 180–402 m | 16,819,931 km | 43.76 LD | 49,404 km/h | ROUTINE |
| 2005 QQ87 | 2026-Aug-27 | 72–161 m | 20,672,081 km | 53.78 LD | 73,280 km/h | ROUTINE |
| 2017 WJ16 | 2026-Aug-27 | 34–77 m | 39,639,327 km | 103.12 LD | 16,663 km/h | ROUTINE |
| 2019 QF2 | 2026-Aug-27 | 73–163 m | 58,346,530 km | 151.79 LD | 73,102 km/h | ROUTINE |
One lunar distance is 384,400 km, the Moon’s mean orbit. Today’s closest pass is 18.41 LD. 1 of these carry the PHA label. That is an orbital classification — wider than roughly 140 m and capable of passing within 0.05 AU — not a prediction. Nothing on this list is on an impact course.
DEEP FIELD SCAN
Colorful Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall
What a sight to behold, when a night sky became filled with colors that appeared to rain over the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. This image was taken in a single 5 second exposure by the photographer in April 2025. Seeing an aurora is on many people's bucket lists. But it is not easy. It requires high solar activity, dark and clear skies, and usually a viewing location at high latitude. That makes the northern lights more easily seen than the corresponding southern lights, simply because there is less landmass in the Southern Hemisphere, especially around the Antarctic Circle. Auroras are caused by charged particles from the solar wind that are captured by the Earth's magnetosphere and guided by the magnetic field to a region close to one of the poles, where they collide with gas particles in the atmosphere. Different colors indicate interactions with different gases at different altitudes, like oxygen (red and green) and nitrogen (blue and pink). APOD's main NASA site is moving : From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod
CREDIT: Victor Lima Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
Standing questions
- What is the Kp index?
- Kp — the planetary K-index — is a 0 to 9 scale of how much the solar wind is disturbing Earth's magnetic field, averaged over three hours across a global network of magnetometers. 0 to 3 is quiet, 4 is active, and 5 or above is a geomagnetic storm, the point at which aurora becomes visible well outside the polar regions. The current reading is 0.67, which is quiet. Aurora should stay inside the polar circle tonight.
- Where is the ISS right now?
- The International Space Station was at 45.23° N, 165.68° E, 418 km above sea level and travelling 27,609 km/h as of 2026-08-27 19:25:24Z. It completes an orbit roughly every 92 minutes and covers about 7.7 km every second, so any single position is only good for a few seconds. The tracker on this page refreshes every five seconds from the same public feed.
- Is an asteroid going to hit Earth?
- No. No known asteroid large enough to cause serious damage has a meaningful chance of striking Earth this century — NASA's Sentry system continuously screens every catalogued object for impact risk, and nothing on the current list rates a concern. Objects pass close constantly: a few dozen come nearer than the Moon every year. The 'potentially hazardous' label applied to some of them describes orbital geometry — bigger than about 140 metres and able to pass within 0.05 astronomical units — not an incoming impact.