Word: sphere
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Also at Canaveral, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration tried to fling into orbit a10-lb. plastic and aluminum inflatable sphere that would circle the earth like an oversized beach ball (diameter: 12 ft.), measuring friction in the outer reaches of the atmosphere. The three-stage Juno II rocket itself (a modification of the Army's operational workhorse Jupiter) blasted off without a hitch, but the beach ball never achieved orbit, probably through a failure in the attitude control system...
...shotput. brawny (6 ft. 3 in., 240 Ibs.) World Champion Parry O'Brien was trailing Teammate Dave Davis when he flashed across the ring on his fifth try, heaved the 16-lb. sphere 63 ft. 2½ in. to break his own record...
...bright star. But such events are extremely rare. Venus looks big because of sunlight reflecting brightly from its faintly yellow cloud deck; actually, to earth-bound observers its disk is never larger (usually much smaller) than a golf ball seen from a distance of 500 ft. As the tiny sphere creeps slowly across the star field, it occasionally covers a faint star, but not once since the invention of the telescope 350 years ago has it covered anything like Regulus, a star of the first magnitude...
...Released from a hurricane-scouting aircraft, it should follow along at a constant barometric pressure, trapped in the eye like the birds, broadcasting radio signals that tell the hurricane watchers how fast the storm is moving, its pressure, etc. A second gadget still under test is a big, inflated sphere that will ride the surface ocean waves in the eye, broadcasting similar information at sea level. Still a third promising device: a camera-carrying rocket that flies high enough to bring down pictures of an entire hurricane, several hundred miles across, give weathermen their first complete look...
...feel that religious beliefs are among the central issues in the conflict between the Soviet sphere and the "West...