![]() |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
In article ,
Matt J. McCullar wrote: Potentially, millions of years. The higher a satellite's orbit, the better. However, there's one other thing to consider: the Moon. If the satellite orbit is too close to (or in resonance with) the Moon, then the Moon will severely perturb its orbit. Carl Sagan tackled this topic in one of his books; I think it was _Murmurs of Earth_. IIRC, on board one of the GOES satellites (geosynchronous Earth orbit, which means it's thousands of miles up) is a plaque with artwork that shows the current placement of the world's continents, as well as how we think the same continents were positioned millions of years ago... as well as how we think the future shifting of the continental plates will take the land masses millions of years into the future. Potentially, anyone finding that satellite in the far-distant future will have a rough visual idea of when that satellite was launched. There are plenty of spacecraft which have left Earth's influence entirely and will never return. Some are already past all of the major planets of the solar system and are still heading out at high speed. True, however once a spacecraft has left the Earth's influence, it is no longer an artificial Earth satellite but instead an artificial minor planet. Such objects are likely to live for an extremely long time, though. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/ |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Who has made the quickest complete orbit of the earth | Rusty | History | 7 | December 7th 05 12:52 AM |
how long does the sunspots stay? | md | Amateur Astronomy | 5 | July 27th 04 02:10 AM |
Will bush tying ISS to long term stay and Mars | bob haller | History | 2 | April 13th 04 05:17 PM |
Earth mapping satellite? | Rich | Satellites | 4 | October 26th 03 07:01 PM |
Q. Do all man-made satellites orbit the Earth west to East ? | Jim Jones | Misc | 4 | August 22nd 03 06:46 PM |