Watching our Weather

From its lofty position a hundred miles or more above the earth, the satellite can keep a close watch upon the atmosphere and the cloud formations which cause our weather. The Tiros satellite was most helpful in tracking the fierce storms, known as typhoons, which could not be forecast by other means. One of these moons, Tiros III, found over fifty of the great storms and tracked them from their beginning to their end.

Satellites do not mean the end of weather stations on the ground, but they do give very great help to them.

Since the successes of the Tiros moons, others have been sent into space to help collect information of the same kind.

Satellites look at the earth and its atmosphere. They can look into space and find out much about the waves of radiation which never get to the earth because the atmosphere stops them. They can make measurements of the air, of temperature, of magnetism and of gravity around them. Unhappily, too, they could be used also for destructive purposes in time of war. We must hope that men will determine that the man-made moons shall be used only for peaceful purposes.