Space Shuttle Atlantis was unable to return home Thursday afternoon because of bad weather surrounding its landing site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Bad weather, however, means that skywatchers around North America will be able to see the pair of orbiting vehicles streak across the night sky on Thursday.

To find when the pair of orbiting objects will be racing across your local sky, go to NASA SkyWatch (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/), NASA’s J-PASS (http://science.nasa.gov/Realtime/JPass/), or Heaven’s Above (http://www.heavens-above.com/).

The shuttle and station will appear as bright stars in the sky traveling west to south-southeast. The station will be a little bit brighter than the shuttle. The station is brighter because its solar panels reflect a lot of sunlight.

The Space Station will appear first in the sky at about 11 degrees from the horizon in the western sky, and Shuttle Atlantis will appear about 25 seconds behind the Station. They should appear lower in the sky that on yesterday’s Wednesday sighting. Their maximum elevation will be about 23 degrees, ending their travels across your local sky in the south-southeast direction.

Traveling at about 18,000 miles per hour, they will be seen for only a few minutes in the night sky.

From my vantage point in Peoria, Illinois (about three hours south of Chicago), I will see the Space Station in the sky from 10:15:14 p.m. to 10:19: 46 p.m. CDT (only for about 4.5 minutes) and the Shuttle from 10:15: 39 p.m. to 10:20:12 p.m.

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