Word: gradient
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...informosomes was impossible because Kafatos was dealing with such minute amounts of particles. Finally he turned to a method for testing a particle's density devised ten years ago by Harvard's Matthew Meselson, professor of Biology. Particles are placed in a centrifugal tube containing a salt gradient, a solution with various density levels. Kafatos used a centrifuge capable of creating a gravitational field 400,000 times greater than that of the earth. The particles soon settle to the level of the solution which has the same density...
...flight path, the sensor can detect temperature variations as small as a fraction of a degree Fahrenheit in atmospheric carbon dioxide at a range of from 24 to 48 miles. These variations register on three side-by-side cockpit gauges that show the pilot whether a temperature gradient lies directly ahead or 45° to the left or right of his flight path...
...determined, it is relatively easy to detect changes in the spacecraft's known configuration. In June, RSA was employed to discover which of four solar panels on a secret Air Force satellite had not flopped into place. When telemetry failed to confirm that a boom on a gravity gradient satellite had extended, RSA recognized a change in the radar pattern that proved the boom had stretched into place. A study of the radar echoes reflected from the first Nimbus weather satellite provided tumble and spin data that were unavailable from telemetry...
...another bulge helps keep the moon in line by centrifugal force. G.E.'s experimental satellite employs the same principle. The "bulges" are two 11-lb. spheres on the ends of 52-ft. booms that extend from the satellite after it has been fired into orbit. One such Gravity Gradient Test Satellite (GGTS) was lofted into a 21,000-mile-high orbit in mid-June, and it is gradually but successfully stabilizing its attitude with one rod pointing toward the earth and the other away...
Earlier models of this Gravity Gradient system used on four other satellites were successful at lower altitudes. But scientists questioned whether far out, where the earth's gravity is weak, the damping devices which kept the satellite from swinging like a pendulum in lower orbits would still be effective. G.E. experts, however, were convinced that their basic system was reliable...