The local space context of Santiago as this registry holds it — the catalogued human footprint on the ground around it, the orbits that can pass overhead, and the geostationary belt seen from here.
| position | 33.457° S, 70.648° W | GeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0 |
|---|---|---|
| population | 4,837,295 inhabitants | GeoNames (geonames.org) — CC BY 4.0 |
| site | distance · bearing | position | source layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Puente del Inca, Mendoza, Argentina | 99 km NE (44°) | 32.820° S, 69.910° W | gcat-sites |
| Villa Reynolds Air Base, Mercedes, San Luis province, Argentina | 489 km E (95°) | 33.730° S, 65.380° W | gcat-sites |
| Centro de Ensayo y Lanzamiento de Proyectiles Autopropulsados | 552 km NE (49°) | 30.130° S, 66.317° W | gcat-sites |
| Poligono de Salinas Grandes, Serrezuela, Cordoba | 577 km ENE (59°) | 30.650° S, 65.500° W | gcat-sites |
Distances are great-circle on a sphere of mean radius 6,371 km; bearings are initial true bearings from the city. Each position is the source catalogue's own, read back from the registry.
Of the 23,251 artificial objects the registry places in Earth orbit on 2026-10-18, 20,204 fly orbits whose ground track reaches 33.457° S, so they can pass directly overhead; the other 3,047 never reach this latitude.
| space station | inclination | can pass overhead |
|---|---|---|
| Bai Xiang | 85.0° | yes |
| International Space Station (+3 docked records) | 51.6° | yes |
| Kosmos-382 | 55.9° | yes |
| Tianhe | 41.5° | yes |
Computed: an orbit's equatorial inclination bounds the latitudes its track reaches (inclination i, or 180° − i when retrograde), from the orbital elements the registry holds. «Can pass overhead» is geometry, not a schedule — when, and whether it is lit and visible, depends on the hour.
The geostationary belt arcs across the northern sky and stands 51.1° above the horizon due north — the elevation to aim at for a satellite at this city's own longitude. Computed: spherical Earth (equatorial radius 6,378.137 km), circular orbit of one sidereal day (42,164 km); good to a few tenths of a degree.
/sim.html#sel=EARTH&tn=1,
then stand at Santiago in Stargazing — it computes which satellites are visible now, from this
registry, in your browser.