How Does the United States Respond in Relation to Sputnik What Does Explorer 1 Discover
Explorer one was a milestone
Explorer one was the first U.South. satellite. It was launched simply four months later Russian federation's Sputnik 1 went up on October 4, 1957. People around the world heard Sputnik's unassuming beep beep for 21 days, as this first-ever satellite orbited Earth. And they were riveted. It was over our heads! Such a thing had never been known before. Only a calendar month after the launch of Sputnik 1, Russia launched Sputnik two. It carried a living animal, a dog named Laika. And so the U.S. was adamant to launch its ain satellite into orbit. And it did, with Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958.
This first U.S. satellite was a critical milestone in the primeval days of the 20th century'south space race. And Explorer i, the third human-made object in space, also made a momentous discovery. It made the earliest detection of the Van Allen radiations belts that surround Earth. More virtually the Van Allen Belts below.
Explorer 1 weighed just xxx pounds (xiv kilograms) and was under vii feet (203 cm) long. It took 114.8 minutes to complete 1 orbit of Earth – that's 12.54 orbits a solar day. Its orbit dipped as low as 220 miles (354 km) and reached a maximum distance of ane,563 miles (2,515 km). One scientific instrument onboard, a cosmic ray detector, took measurements of radiation as the spacecraft orbited Globe. The data information technology provided led James Van Allen, the mission's lead scientist, and his squad, to conclude that they had discovered charged particles trapped past Earth'south magnetic field. Data from other satellites eventually confirmed their finding. These zones of trapped accuse particles at present behave Van Allen's proper name.
Information technology helped spur the space race
Explorer 1'southward impact was enormous; it helped spur on what was to become an all-out space race.
Russia had launched Sputnik 1, the world's showtime bogus satellite, on October four, 1957. The U.S. speedily launched Explorer 1 in response. William Hayward Pickering led a team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that designed and built Explorer 1 in under 3 months. Pickering was JPL's manager for 22 years until his retirement in 1976.
Explorer 1 flew into space on a Jupiter-C rocket from the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Bureau under the guidance of renowned rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. He had worked for the Nazis during World State of war II only afterward began working for the U.s.a.. During the Apollo plan, von Braun was the chief builder of the Saturn V, the gargantuan rocket that ultimately sent people to the moon.
In that location were several scientific discipline instruments aboard Explorer 1: temperature gauges, micrometeorite sensors and a cosmic-ray detector. The latter fabricated scientific history past detecting the radiation belts that surrounded Earth. These are zones of charged particles – mostly electrons and protons – that Earth's magnetic field captures from the solar current of air.
Explorer 1 and the Van Allen belts
James Van Allen led a team at the University of Iowa that built Explorer 1's cosmic ray detector. As the rocket ascended, Explorer ane detected expected count rates from cosmic rays. Simply in orbit, between periods of expected cosmic ray count rates, the puzzled scientists saw periods of very high counts and zilch counts. Adding to the confusion was difficulty in picking up satellite transmissions and tracking the satellite'due south orbital path.
Van Allen's graduate pupil Carl McIlwain suggested that the zero counts could be due to a very high concentration of charged particles that caused the detector to saturate and therefore record zero counts. McIlwain tested and confirmed this idea in a lab by subjecting a like detector to an intense source of X-rays. That led the scientists to realize they had discovered a belt of charged particles trapped by the Earth's magnetic field, a hypothesis that other scientists, Kristian Birkeland and Carl Stoermer, had proposed some time back.
Some other satellite, Explorer iii, launched only two months later on (after Explorer 2 failed). It was almost identical to Explorer i only had a tape recorder that was able to replay the catholic-ray detector data back to the ground, providing radiation readings over each orbit.
Using this higher-quality data, the scientists confirmed the presence of a radiation belt. They're now known equally the Van Allen radiations belts.
Probing the Van Allen belts
Subsequent space missions have returned data that improve characterizes the Van Allen Belts. There are two main belts. The inner Van Allen Belt typically extends from 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) to vii,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) higher up the Globe just may vary based on solar activity. The outer belt can vary fifty-fifty more in shape and size, usually extending in altitude from 8,100 to 37,300 miles (xiii,000 to 60,000 km).
In February 2013, NASA announced the discovery of a third radiations belt. This one was a transient miracle tied to solar action. NASA deployed satellites named the Van Allen probes to written report the radiation belts, which discovered the new temporary chugalug.
Nosotros now know that radiation belts are quite common. Other planets in our solar system – such every bit Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus – also take radiations belts like to Globe's. Generally speaking, space radiations poses a risk both to astronauts and to spacecraft. Merely NASA and other infinite agencies have found means to cope with the radiations. As this article in Forbes points out:
Charged particles [like those in the Van Allen belts] are dissentious to human bodies. But the amount of harm done can range from none to lethal, depending on the energy those particles deposit, the density of those particles, and the length of fourth dimension you spend being exposed to them.
So how do astronauts survive a passage through the Van Allen belts? They travel through quickly, minimizing their exposure to the radiation.
Explorer 1's fate
Explorer 1 transmitted data for about four months till its batteries died on May 21, 1958. Merely it remained in orbit effectually Earth for 12 years. Information technology circled Earth 58,376 times earlier burning up upon reentry into the atmosphere on March 31, 1970.
Cheque out this 1958 documentary well-nigh the Explorer 1 satellite (28 minutes).
Lesser line: Explorer i was the kickoff satellite launched by the United States. It flew into Globe orbit on a Jupiter-C rocket on Jan 31, 1958. It gave the U.Southward. a big heave in the early days of the U.South.-Soviet infinite race. This pioneering satellite besides carried a scientific instrument that detected what we now know equally the Van Allen Belts.
Source: https://earthsky.org/space/launch-of-explorer-1-jan-31-1958/
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