21-25 Satellite Facts
21. There is a large area over Brazil where the Earth’s magnetic field has weakened, it is so large that NASA powers down its satellites when passing over. – Source
22. In 1985, the USAF shot down a satellite with a missile launched from an F-15. – Source
23. After the 1991 START I treaty between the US and the USSR, the US chopped 365 B52 bombers into 5 pieces each using a 13,000lb steel blade dropped from a crane. It then left the pieces there for 3 months so that Russian satellites could verify their destruction. – Source
24. Martine Rothblatt made millions by inventing satellite radio. When her daughter was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, she earned a Ph.D. in bioethics and formed a biotech company that licensed drugs to treat her daughter’s illness from other companies, making them much more widely available. – Source
25. The act of Kinetic Bombardment (firing large metal rods from a satellite into the Earth’s surface at terminal velocity as a weapon) remains legal. – Source
26-30 Satellite Facts
26. The first nuclear missile test in space “starfish prime” knocked out several allied satellites and disabled communications on Hawaii. – Source
27. In 2011, NASA’s Terra satellite spotted a 150 km-wide whirlpool in the S. Atlantic. It stood out because it was glowing. – Source
28. A Canadian inventor tried to create a “supergun” which could fire satellites into orbit from a 512 foot-long barrel embedded inside a hill. When western funding failed, he turned to military application of his ideas for Saddam Hussein, but then he was assassinated in Brussels. – Source
29. NASA mapping satellites discovered Mayan ruins that were overgrown by the jungle. – Source
30. Nazi Germany had a research program (Wunderwaffe) that included a stealth bomber, night vision, a 1,500-ton super tank, submarine aircraft carrier, an x-ray gun, and a satellite with a concave mirror to “make an ocean boil or burn a city.” – Source
31-35 Satellite Facts
31. The UK is the only country to have successfully developed a satellite launch capability and then abandon it. – Source
32. Metal “whiskers” can grow spontaneously from circuit board components, and have caused the failure of at least one satellite, and were detected in a failed relay at a nuclear power plant. – Source
33. All 24 GPS satellites are equipped with atomic clocks capable of getting the time stamp to a location to the 100 billionths of a second. – Source
34. Measuring 4086mi^2, the largest salt pan Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is so flat that rain can’t drain, creating the world’s largest natural mirror. It’s also 5 times better for satellite calibration than the surface of the ocean, and an elevation measurement accuracy of 0.8 inches. – Source
35. Einstein’s special theory of Relativity predicts a “second” is 8 microseconds longer for a GPS satellite traveling 9000 mph than it is for the GPS unit on the ground. Your GPS unit is programmed to adjust for the difference. – Source
Facts 1, 3, and 12 have appeared on other lists. This isn’t the first time your site has “recycled” facts. Are the writers lazy? If so, I have no problem starting to write for you guys!
rude.
lol
I saw on a documentary that, said that spy satellites go blind for 1 min every night. I can’t find any information to verify that statement.
It’s not 1 min it is for 1 hour. You can watch an Indian Film based on that “Parmanu” it describes how they tested Nuclear Bomb in 1998 by hiding from the spy satellites of CIA, United States.