why does the orbit path of the space station show as wavy lines?

Question

on a flat map

Answer 1

Depends on your frame of reference. Does the image you are looking at depict the ground track? If so, any orbital plane (path) that is not in the same plane as the equator will look like a wavy line when shown on a flat map (projection) of the earth.

In many cases the orbit is selected so that the spacecraft will pass over a certain ground station so that it can communicate or transfer data, etc, such as the Hubble Space Telescope shown here:

http://science.nasa.gov/Realtime/JTrack/3d/JTrack3D.html

Answer 2

Hi. If the Earth were a perfect sphere and the Space Station had a circular orbit the ground path would still look like it does. Imagine a ball with a ring around it that was just a little larger. If the ball did not rotate and you drew a line around the ring there would be a circle on the ball. If the ball rotated once every 24 hours or so and you took 90 minutes or so to draw the line, it would look like the wavy line you see.

Answer 3

The Earth's surface is curved, so when a flat two-dimensional map is created, the continents appear to be spread out more toward the poles. The apparent orbits of the space station and the shuttle are affected the same way. While they travel in a circle (as far as they're concerned), when the path is projected onto a two-dimensional image it appears as a wave.

Answer 4

The earth is rotating inside the orbit of the satellite causing different areas to be under it at any one time. A geosynchronous orbit does not cause a varying path, a polar orbit would draw a different pattern.

Answer 5

Earth is not a perfect sphere but rather an oblate spheroid. the atmosphere just distorts our view of earth to make it look perfectly round from space. the atmosphere can also distort these lines you're talking about to make them look wavy.