A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Satellites have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation (GPS), broadcasting, scientific research, and Earth observation. Additional military uses are reconnaissance, early warning, signals intelligence and, potentially, weapon delivery. Other satellites include the final rocket stages that placed satellites in orbit and formerly useful satellites that are now defunct.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other planets.
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries ran out, and continued in orbit for three months until aerodynamic drag caused it to fall back into the atmosphere on 4 January 1958.
A space telescope or space observatory is a telescope in outer space used to observe astronomical objects. Suggested by Lyman Spitzer in 1946, the first operational telescopes were the American Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, OAO-2 launched in 1968, and the Soviet Orion 1 ultraviolet telescope aboard space station Salyut 1 in 1971. Space telescopes avoid the filtering and distortion (scintillation) of electromagnetic radiation which they observe, and avoid light pollution which ground-based observatories encounter. They are divided into two types: Satellites which map the entire sky, and satellites which focus on selected astronomical objects or parts of the sky and beyond. Space telescopes are distinct from Earth imaging satellites, which point toward Earth for satellite imaging, applied for weather analysis, espionage, and other types of information gathering.
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a University of Alaska Fairbanks program which researches the ionosphere - the highest, ionized part of Earth’s atmosphere.
Twinkling, also called scintillation, is a generic term for variations in apparent brightness, colour, or position of a distant luminous object viewed through a medium. If the object lies outside the Earth's atmosphere, as in the case of stars and planets, the phenomenon is termed astronomical scintillation; for objects within the atmosphere, the phenomenon is termed terrestrial scintillation. As one of the three principal factors governing astronomical seeing, atmospheric scintillation is defined as variations in illuminance only.
James Alfred Van Allen was an American space scientist at the University of Iowa. He was instrumental in establishing the field of magnetospheric research in space.
Landsat 1 (LS-1), formerly named ERTS-A and ERTS-1, was the first satellite of the United States' Landsat program. It was a modified version of the Nimbus 4 meteorological satellite and was launched on July 23, 1972, by a Delta 900 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Thomas David Jones is a former United States astronaut. He was selected to the astronaut corps in 1990 and completed four Space Shuttle flights before retiring in 2001. He flew on STS-59 and STS-68 in 1994, STS-80 in 1996, and STS-98 in 2001. His total mission time was 53 days 48 minutes. He works as a planetary scientist, space operations consultant, astronaut speaker, and author.
Carolyn C. Porco is an American planetary scientist who explores the outer Solar System, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s. She led the imaging science team on the Cassini mission in orbit around Saturn. She is an expert on planetary rings and the Saturnian moon, Enceladus.
Deborah Byrd is an American science journalist. She is editor-in-chief of EarthSky, which presents science news and night sky information. The website served more than 21 million users in 2019, according to Google Analytics.
Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission began in February 2007 as a constellation of five NASA satellites to study energy releases from Earth's magnetosphere known as substorms, magnetic phenomena that intensify auroras near Earth's poles. The name of the mission is an acronym alluding to the Titan Themis.
The Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) is the executive and national space agency of Pakistan. It is headquartered at the capital city of Islamabad in the northern part of Pakistan with additional facilities at the University of Punjab in Lahore.
Satellite Instructional Television Experiment or SITE was an experimental satellite communications project launched in India in 1975, designed jointly by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The project made available informational television programs to rural India. The main objectives of the experiment were to educate the financially backward and academically illiterate people of India on various issues via satellite broadcasting, and also to help India gain technical experience in the field of satellite communications.
The Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) is a Canadian microsatellite using a 15-cm aperture f/5.88 Maksutov telescope, with 3-axis stabilisation giving a pointing stability of ~2 arcseconds in a ~100 second exposure. It is funded by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), and searches for interior-to-Earth-orbit (IEO) asteroids, at between 45 and 55 degree solar elongation and +40 to -40 degrees ecliptic latitude.
StarDate is a science radio program of The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory, broadcast on over 360 radio stations. It is a daily guide to the night sky and breaking astronomical news. Typically heard without formal introduction, StarDate is a self-contained science news feature interwoven with routine radio programming. It is the longest-running science outreach program on U.S. radio. Created in 1978 by science journalist Deborah Byrd of the McDonald Observatory, the short (2-minute) format of StarDate sprang Byrd's scripts written for a telephone hot line on astronomy, which had started a year earlier. The telephone scripts had attracted the notice of a producer at radio station KLBJ-FM in Austin, who had turned them into a radio show that was broadcast for a year under the name "Have You Seen the Stars Tonight?" — a reference to the song co-written by Paul Kantner of Jefferson Starship. With the support of Harlan James Smith, McDonald Observatory's director, and after securing funding from the National Science Foundation, Byrd changed the name to Star Date and began the series' national distribution in 1979.
Space research is scientific study carried out in outer space, and by studying outer space. From the use of space technology to the observable universe, space research is a wide research field. Earth science, materials science, biology, medicine, and physics all apply to the space research environment. The term includes scientific payloads at any altitude from deep space to low Earth orbit, extended to include sounding rocket research in the upper atmosphere, and high-altitude balloons.
B. M. Birla Planetarium is a large planetarium in Chennai providing a virtual tour of the night sky and holding cosmic shows on a specially perforated hemispherical aluminium inner dome. The fifth B. M. Birla planetarium in the country, it is located at Kotturpuram in the Periyar Science and Technology Centre campus which houses eight galleries, namely, Physical Science, Electronics and Communication, Energy, Life Science, Innovation, Transport, International Dolls and Children and Materials Science, with over 500 exhibits. Built in 1988 in the memory of the great industrialist and visionary of India B. M. Birla, it is the most modern planetarium in India. Other Birla planetariums in India include the M. P. Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, the Birla Planetarium in Hyderabad, and the planetariums in Tiruchirapalli and Coimbatore.
Since its establishment in 1958, NASA has conducted research on a range of topics. Because of its unique structure, work happens at various field centers and different research areas are concentrated in those centers. Depending on the technology, hardware and expertise needed, research may be conducted across a range of centers.
