Satellites

    According to Nasa.gov, a satellite is a moon, planet or machine that orbits a planet or star. With this definition of a satellite, we can also consider the planets in our solar system, like the Earth, a satellite since it orbits the sun. These are known as “Natural Satellites.” More specifically, a "satellite" refers to a machine that is launched into space and revolves around Earth or another body in space. These machines are used by various different researchers to help better understand the universe.

    Some meteorologists use satellites to take pictures of the planet in order to predict weather and track hurricanes. Other meteorologists take pictures of other planets, the sun, black holes, dark matter, or faraway galaxies. Many other satellites are still used mainly for communications, such as beaming TV signals and phone calls around the world.

    Satellites are able to give researchers a bird's-eye view allowing them to see large areas of Earth at one time. This ability allows satellites to collect more data even quicker than instruments on the ground. Satellites are also very useful because they can provide much clearer images of outer space than telescopes. This is because they reside above the natural barriers like clouds and dust molecules that can block the view from the ground level.  Satellites are also used to make TV signals and phone calls possible. These devices are able to send their signals up to the satellite, which almost instantly sends them back down to different locations on Earth.

    Out of the 2,666 operational satellites circling the globe in April 2020, 1,007 were for communication services. 446 of these satellites are used for observing the Earth and 97 for navigation/ GPS purposes. Right now, there are nearly 6,000 satellites circling our tiny planet. About 60% of those are defunct satellites or space junk, and roughly 40% are operational.

 

El Nino and La Nina

 La Nina and El Nino are both effects that occur because of the El Nino Southern Oscillation phenomena El Nino being a warm phase and La Nina is the cold phase with a neutral phase occurring occasionally in between. The El Nino Southern Oscillation also is known as ESNA is a pattern of trade winds in the Pacific Ocean that influence the weather across the world. The name El Nino (little boy) was fixated on this event when waters would be warmer than normal on the coast of South America and La Nina (little girl) was for when the waters would be colder than normal. During an El Nino, which occur every 3-5 years, there is is a warming of waters in the Pacfic Ocean that is paired with stronger winds that blow eastward. The effects that come with El Ninos include a drastic increase in rain levels in the southern United States, that often bring flash floods. Along with this there are often colder winters in the northeast due to a strong polar jet from the north. El Ninos also have a strong impact on hurricane formation and during an El Nino event there is an increase in hurricane production in the Pacfic Ocean and a decrease in the Atlantic Ocean due to the strong wind shear that often rips apart any tropical activity. 

During a La Nina the effects are the opposite of an El Nino, the waters in the Pacfic Ocean cool while and the wind slows down. During a La Nina the southern United States is met with extremely hot and dry weather, while the northern states often deal with above average precipitation during the winter months. Likewise with La Ninas there is an impact on hurricane production but differing to El Ninos, La Ninas produce more hurricanes in the Atlantic and less in the Pacific due to the water and wind changes. ESNO is referred to as one of the most important weather phenomena across the globe because of the heavy impact that it has on food and agriculture sources across the world. The cause behind this event includes oceanic circulation which involves the rising and sinking of warm and cold waters throughout the oceans on the planet. One particularly grim event involved an El Nino during the years 2015-16 in which over 60 million people were directly impacted due to the years El Nino, which caused widespread famine, drought, and disease outbreak. With the warming of our planet these El Ninos will continue to gain strength and impact more and more people across the world.