How is light produced on a space station?

Question

When a space station does not receive light from the sun, does it produce its own light? Are ordinary light bulbs used?

Answer 1

I got the following info from a hit on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Internation...

LIGHTING: The lighting system provides illumination for the interior and exterior of the International Space Station. The internal lighting varies throughout the different modules, nodes, and airlock, but all function to provide illumination for displays, controls, crew station, and crew equipment operations. The exterior lighting provides illumination for Extravehicular Activity (EVA) and video camera operations. This manual covers the different types of lighting provided in the United States (U.S.) modules and the exterior lighting. as well as how the lighting equipment is powered and controlled. After reading this workbook, the student should be able to: summarize the purpose of lighting hardware; differentiate between lighting hardware components; give an example of lighting hardware functionality; explain how each type of lighting is controlled.

The book this came from is a little pricey, 35 bucks but if you were really interested it might be worth it.  The other answers are good, basically charge some batteries for solar panels, use the batteries to light up some bulbs.

EDIT  I just had a thought.  The astronauts always lose bone when in outer space and this is ALWAYS attributed to the micogravity conditions.....what if it's from a lack of light which we know, along with vitamin D is essential to strong bones.  This happens in the n orthern latitudes and used to occur at the winter expeditions to the Antartica.  I know they solved the South Pole problem by incorporating T3 tungsten lamps which imitates sunlight.    just wondering

Answer 2

Solar pannels on the outside of the station absorb sunlight and turns it into electricity. this electricity then lights high efficiency lightbulbs. If your curious on how solar pannels work, just google photovoltaic cells.  

Answer 3

Yes, they are more or less ordinary light bulbs.

Answer 4

  Solar panels and batteries.

  Neon lights and LEDs are used

Answer 5

they don't use ordinary light bulbs much bcuz they are inefficient and generate too much heat. most of the lighting is fluorescent.

iss has ample sunlight. the astronuts are not going to be out of sunlight long enuf to mess up their bones. microgravity does that all by itself.

Answer 6

Where do you think they get any of their power from?  How do you think they keep the air fresh, the instruments working, etc.  Daft question really, considering you could run the lights in your house off solar power.

Answer 7

On the daytime part of the orbit the solar panels charge up batteries. On the night part of the orbit they run off the batteries. They use regular lights, just like on Earth. Since the orbit only takes 90 minutes, night is only 45 minutes long. So is day.

Answer 8

The space station is almost constantly in direct sight with the sun but when it is behind the earth, electricity from solar panels are stored in batteries.  I'm not sure what type of bulbs they use.  I'm sure they spare no expense.  Hope this helps.

Answer 9

someone say  let there be light

Answer 10

My thinking is during the hours they receive sun they store it in power cells that store it for when they orbit on the other side of the planet.

Answer 11

Yes, but I they're not the kind of light bulbs you'll find at a store!