You know you’re a big deal when there’s a cardboard cut-out of you for people to pose with.
Recognize this guy? Yup. This is the Commander Chris Hadfield, the man with the top job in Space. He’s Canadian – the first Canadian to run the International Space Station – and he has relatives here in Victoria.
If you’re on social media, you probably know who he is. Hadfield is an amazing photographer. He regularly posts photos of cities from Space on Twitter.
April 5th, I shared Hadfield’s photo of Victoria on air and on Facebook. It was taken early Easter Sunday. You may remember that was the weekend we had record-breaking temperatures on the island. The skies were so clear thanks to a building ridge of high pressure it’s no wonder the photo turned out so well.
Many of you shared my post with your friends and the discussion that followed on social media was fantastic. Cmdr. Hadfield has done more than become a Twitter and Facebook sensation. He has used social media to rekindle our interest in our universe, and excite school kids about the science of Space and what goes on at the International Space Station. Just ask the staff at the Centre of the Universe atop Little Saanich Mountain. They’ve been inudated by questions!
“Lots of kids come up with their parents,” saysEric Chisholm, the Head of Outreach at Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. “They have a lot of questions about the international Space Station”.
I bet they do! Since Hadfield was handed the keys to the ISS, everyone’s talking about him. Thanks to our new Canadian celebrity, my 6-year-old son is hooked on star-gazing, looking for planets and spotting the ISS. Some night’s it’s hard to get him to go to bed on time (sorry teachers!).
“It’s different, what’s going on with him,” says Chisholm, “You can look up and see the International Space Station. He’s more than a picture on a screen. You can see this thing getting brighter across the sky.”
Maybe that’s why so many of us feel a connection that’s out of this world. Hadfield has brought Space down to Earth. By sharing photos, videos and comments from 350 kilometers above our planet, we’re instantly connected. Now that’s an awesome accomplishment in itself!
We’re in for a cloudy night on Vancouver Island, but if you’re lucky enough to get a clearing at just the right time, you might see the International Space Station fly by.
Tonight’s coordinates: 10:04 PM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 76 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: E
If you miss it, don’t worry. It flies by regularly, so you will have many chances to wave to Commander Chris Hadfield and his crew. In the meantime, plan to get a photo with Hadfield at the observatory when it opens to the public mid-May, and keep the conversation about Space going! Science is cool, especially on warm summer nights when the observatory hosts star parties. There are even summer camps (English and French) for little Galileo’s.
If the sky was clear tonight, you’d see Jupiter just below the moon and Saturn rising in the east. Too bad it isn’t. I’ll keep you posted. :)
