The International Space Station will make several flybys over Europe and North America this week. The flybys will be brief, lasting about five minutes at most. But while it’s overhead, the space station will outshine everything in the evening sky except the moon.

While the ISS constantly circles Earth, it’s only visible just after sunset or just before sunrise; at other times of day it’s outshone by the sun, or cloaked by Earth’s shadow. Thanks to orbital coincidences, this week’s flybys will be exceptionally bright.

To find out when to look up, check Spaceweather.com’s prediction page, NASA’s Space Station Sighting page, or Heavens Above. You can also have alerts sent directly to your smartphone.

Image: The space station as seen from the space shuttle Discovery in April, 2009 (STS-119 Shuttle Crew, NASA).

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