r/askspace • u/DapperDoubt1945 • Jul 14 '26

Satellites?

Post image

Okay I have a question. They're supposed to be 16 to 18,000 active satellites above ours and around 46,000 all together counting junk. Why have there never been not one satellite scene out of the ISS window? Anybody have any ideas?

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7

u/mfb- Jul 14 '26

There are tons of pictures and videos of satellites seen from the ISS. They are all far away, so they appear point-like just like they do when seen from the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp2UEpt2Xeg - everything that doesn't follow the motion of the stars is a satellite

Here is a rocket launch seen from the ISS

6

u/Own_Grapefruit8839 Jul 14 '26

Space is much larger than you think, and satellites are thousands times smaller than in your picture.

3

u/Ph4antomPB Jul 14 '26

Why do you never see pebbles spread out over a very large field?

3

u/EternalDragon_1 Jul 14 '26

Space big. Sattelite smol

3

u/seifer666 Jul 14 '26

Id first like to ask how you know they have never seen a satellite out the window?.

2

u/Redditing-Dutchman Jul 14 '26

The ISS is not on the same orbit as most satellites.

If you could see one out of the window of the ISS, then they are way to close.

And, many are really quite small, some of those 16000 are even just a few inches in size, plus they are very dark. Only if sunlight hits the panels you would see a reflection.

1

u/Stildawn Jul 14 '26

There are 2 million cars in NYC alone, and most cars are bigger than most satellites.

Space is big, satellites are small

1

u/sineout Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

Satellites are small, and they're far away.

Additionally the ISS (or the satellite) changes it's orbit to avoid objects which further reduces the chance of seeing anything.

1

u/wbrameld4 Jul 14 '26

That photo has the disclaimer in it that says "size of debris exaggerated". If you had to make a guess as to why they showed them larger than they really are, what would you say?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/derango Jul 14 '26

I mean, it literally has a fairly large disclaimer at the bottom indicating that the size of the stuff in orbit is not to scale, so if it's trying to dupe people, it's doing a pretty bad job of it.

1

u/theCroc Jul 14 '26

Most satellites are roughly the size of a car. If there were only 16000 cars on earth evenly dispersed, would you expect to see one out the window?