Word: orbit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...General Motors believes that "we would much rather be inscrutable than talk too much." His 9½ hours with Rappleye may set some sort of record for this reticent man. Recently, on one of Donner's inspection trips to G.M.'s overseas empire, he entered the orbit of Australian Artist William Dobell, who painted the cover portrait. The story was written by Everett Martin, 36, who once covered Detroit for the Christian Science Monitor and worked for the Wall Street Journal...
This minor-sounding inaccuracy means that the nearby moon on earth's very doorstep follows an orbit that cannot be measured closer than ¾ mile...
Measuring the distance to Mars or other such far-out planets is far trickier; they are well beyond the useful range of available radar. Astronomers calculate the interplanetary distance by observing the time it takes for Mars to complete one orbit around the sun and comparing that time with the earth's own time on its orbit. Since the distances of the planets from the sun are in proportion to their periods of revolution, the radius of the Martian orbit can thus be measured in terms of the basic "astronomical unit": the average distance of the earth from...
Artificial Planet. Trouble is, that the astronomical unit is known with even greater inaccuracy than the speed of light. As Mars curves around its orbit, its measured distance from the earth may be as much as 2,000 miles in error. Dr. Lowther hopes to clear up this unhappy situation by lofting a small satellite into an orbit around the sun. Lowther's satellite would carry extremely sensitive radio equipment to amplify signals from earth and send them back again on a slightly different wave length. This sophisticated radar system would make no use of the speed of light...
After Dr. Lowther's noisy little artificial planet has been tracked through several trips around the sun, its orbit will be known with much greater accuracy than that of any natural planet. And from its carefully plotted position astronomers will be able to measure correctly the earth's distance from the sun. Then it will also be possible to plot accurate orbits for all the other planets...