In Space, New Year's Day Can Be Celebrated 16 Times. Here's Why

As the world ushered in the new year on Monday, astronauts in space welcome 2024 in their own unique way -- by observing 16 New Year's countdowns in a row.

The fascinating phenomenon occurs on the International Space Station all thanks to its high velocity which makes it travel an equivalent distance to the Moon and back in about a day. So in 24 hours, the International Space Station, with a crew of seven people, makes 16 orbits of Earth and experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets.

As the station's orbital path covers over 90 per cent of the Earth's population, the astronauts experience New Year over and over again.

Unlike on Earth, where a day usually consists of 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness, in space astronauts get 45 minutes of daylight and then 45 minutes of darkness. This ongoing cycle occurs 16 times a day and the astronauts experience16 sunrises and sunsets during their orbit.

The space station is a result of international partnership among five space agencies from 15 countries that joined hands to operates it. According to NASA, the space station has been continuously occupied since November 2000. Usually, seven crew live and work on the space station which is bigger than a six-bedroom house, but there may be more on board when a crew handover takes place.

In 2017, US astronaut Peggy Whitson set the record of spending the most total time on the station -- 665 days or nearly two years.

The repeated day to night shift may seem unnatural to us on Earth but the unique phenomenon is a boon for astronauts who can conduct diverse microbiology and metallurgy experiments using the constant shifts between day and night. Although bizarre, this offers insights that would not be possible to replicate on Earth. 

According to NASA, after leaving Earth, a spacecraft can reach the space station in as quickly as four hours.