Sky Show : Objects Of Flight Over the Valley

What’s up? In the skies above the San Fernando Valley, that question can be answered literally thousands of ways.

From the white-throated swift 1,000 feet above the Valley floor to the Andromeda Galaxy 2.5 million light-years away, the skies above the Valley are filled with objects visible to the naked eye.

The challenge begins at the break of dawn, when early risers can catch a glimpse of the space shuttle on the rare occasion that it lands at Edwards Air Force Base near Lancaster. Other high-speed aircraft, such as the SR-71 Blackbird, can also be seen streaking above the desert. And more than 2,000 flights of commercial and private aircraft pass in and out of Burbank and Van Nuys airports alone.

At night, the sky lights up with hundreds of stars. Meteors are often seen streaking across the sky at up to 35 miles per second. And hawk-eyed sky watchers can spy satellites moving 300 miles above the ground. Here are a few of the many things that Valley residents may see:

Meteors, cosmic dust: As much as 100 tons of cosmic debris strikes the Earth’s atmosphere every day. These grain-size objects enter the Earth’s atmosphere at 35 miles per second and burn up between 36 and 72 miles above the ground. An average of seven meteors an hour can be seen streaking to Earth each night.

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Space shuttle: During landing, the shuttle comes in at 100,000 feet over the Southern California coast at Mach 4.5. At about 35 miles from Edwards, it cruises down to 50,000 feet.

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Satellites: An estimated 2,000 military, weather, navigation and communications satellites orbit the Earth at 300 miles to 22,000 miles.

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Hubble Space Telescope: is one of these satellites, orbiting about 380 miles above Earth.Some satellites can be seen over the Valley, moving slowly like small, non-blinking stars at night.

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SR-71 Blackbird: often flies 70,000 feet above the high desert area around Edwards Air Force Base.

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(Chart:)

50,000 feet to 23,000 miles: Space shuttle, meteors and satellites

2,000 to 8,000 feet: Commercial and private aircraft

2,000 feet: White-throated swift

0 to 1,000 feet: Swainson’s thrush

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Note: Griffith Observatory Sky Report: (213) 663-8171

Sources: NASA; Kimball Garrett; Griffith Observatory; Burbank Airport

Researched by JEFF SCHNAUFER / Los Angeles Times