Detail The End of the Space Age   Oleh:  [s.n] Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 400 no. 8740 (Jul. 2011), page 7. Topik: Inner Space; Outer Space; Earth; Global-positioning Systems (GPS) Ketersediaan Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.66 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada     Lihat Detail Induk Isi artikel Inner space is useful. Outer space is history. How big is the Earth? Any encyclopedia will give you an answer: its equatorial diameter is 12,756km, or, for those who prefer to think that way, 7,926 miles. Ah, but then there is the atmosphere. Should that count? Perhaps the planet's true diameter is actually nearer 13,000km, including all its air. But even that may no longer be an adequate measure. For the Earth now reaches farther still. The vacuum surrounding it buzzes with artificial satellites, forming a sort of technosphere beyond the atmosphere. Most of these satellites circle only a few hundred kilometres above the planet's solid surface. Many, though, form a ring like Saturn's at a distance of 36,000km, the place at which an object takes 24 hours to orbit the Earth and thus hovers continuously over the same point of the planet. Viewed this way, the Earth is quite a lot larger than the traditional textbook answer. And viewed this way, the Space Age has been a roaring success. Telecommunications, weather forecasting, agriculture, forestry and even the search for minerals have all been revolutionised. So has warfare. No power can any longer mobilise its armed forces in secret. The exact location of every building on the planet can be known. And satellite-based global-positioning systems will guide a smart bomb to that location on demand. Opini Anda Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini! Kembali

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