Sunday, October 19, 2008

Fundamentals : Satellites and geostationary ones?

Satellites are all bodies that circle the Earth including our moon which is a natural satellite. If you look at their circular paths , they are centred at Earth's centre. A geostationary is one that goes around above the equator and have the same axis or rotation as the earth ( moving in the same direction from west to east and having a period of 24 h) . There can be other satellites above the equator at lower heights but the period will be less than 24h. A polar satellite which passes the north and south pole can have a period of 24 h but surely cannot be geostationary. A russian satellite goes over russia (north )and later south america(south ) cannot be called geostationary.