space

There are thousands of artificial satellites orbiting Earth, carrying out tasks from navigation to enabling communications to wildfire monitoring. What happens when a satellite reaches the end of its life, though?

There are two main ways old satellites are disposed of: they’re brought back to Earth, or they’re sent further away. We’re going to take a look at those disposal methods here.

Can we grow medicine in space? This post looks at why bone density is a problem for astronauts, and how specialised lettuce might be able to help.

Since the 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, satellites have revolutionised the world. Even people who don’t work with satellites still use them on a daily basis for tasks like navigation and watching television.

There’s one particularly interesting satellite function we didn’t go into in our article on the applications of satellites, and that’s the way satellites are used to save lives. We’re going to take a look at that in this post.

Satellites are fantastically useful tools, and there are thousands of them in orbit around the Earth right now. Before the current age of satellites could come into being, though, someone had to take the first step.

In today’s post, we’re taking a look at the early history of satellites, and in particular at Sputnik 1: the first artificial satellite in space.

Does food taste different in space? This post takes a look at the chilli peppers growing on the ISS, and at why spicy food is popular with astronauts.