Tag Archives: Satellites

Have You Seen a Satellite?

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Have you ever see a satellite pass overhead? Maybe the International Space Station, or the Hubble Space Telescope? I was at a friend’s home the other day, and mentioned that it was rare for me not to see a satellite during a nighttime observing session – typically within the first half hour. My friend said he’d only seen the International Space Station, once… I was floored! I mentioned this to my wife, and she pointed out to me what should have been obvious to me: that not everyone spends half hour sessions looking at the sky. (Actually, what she lovingly said was “You’re not normal.”) So, with that… there are a LOT of man-made satellites orbiting the Earth; the United States Space Surveillance Network is currently tracking more than 8,000 objects(1). Only seven percent of those objects are operational satellites, the rest is space junk: dead satellites, rocket bodies, and miscellaneous debris. If you go outside on a clear moonless night, … Continue reading →

Orbits of Jupiter’s Moons

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I was putting the finishing touches on a lecture I was to give to the Warren Astronomical Society titled “Exploring the Solar System;” I wanted to put a couple images of the orbits of the moons of the planets. The image below shows the inner moons of Jupiter, in nice circular orbits – this is pretty much exactly what one would expect when it comes to moons, right? Now, I KNEW that Jupiter had 67 moons, and I KNEW that several of them were captured comets and asteroids… but I did not expect to see this when I zoomed out to show the orbits ALL of Jupiter’s moons. Jupiter is a MESS! And Saturn isn’t any better: I don’t know WHAT I was expecting, but this wasn’t it, and it should have been… I can’t remember seeing anything like this in any books of Astronomy that I have seen. These images were captured from the Windows app Celestia – I … Continue reading →