At some point, the International Space Station crew must have run out of new targets for a stroke-of-midnight kiss.
In a prerecorded video, ISS Commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and crew member Terry Virts explain the back-of-the-envelope math: Orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles per hour, the space station would have been directly over 16 separate 'midnights' as the planet's different time zones celebrated New Year's.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
How accurate are political polls?The Explainer And how much should you read into figures ahead of the 2024 election?
-
5 insightful podcasts you may have missed this summerThe Week Recommends A few podcast veterans and a number binge-worthy newcomers created an entertaining summer for podcast listeners
-
Code-switching: the origins, purpose and pitfallsThe Explainer Balancing your identity and respectability politics sometimes means taking on a different tone or behavior to fit in
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipseSpeed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeepingSpeed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
-
An amphibian that produces milk?speed read Caecilians, worm-like amphibians that live underground, produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings
-
Jupiter's Europa has less oxygen than hopedspeed read Scientists say this makes it less likely that Jupiter's moon harbors life
-
Why February 29 is a leap daySpeed Read It all started with Julius Caesar
-
US spacecraft nearing first private lunar landingSpeed Read If touchdown is successful, it will be the first U.S. mission to the moon since 1972
-
Scientists create 'meaty' rice for eco-friendly proteinSpeed Read Korean scientists have invented a new hybrid food, consisting of beef muscle and fat cells grown inside grains of rice
-
New images reveal Neptune and Uranus in different colours than originally thoughtSpeed Read Voyager 2 images from the 1980s led to 'modern misconception'
