Sputnik 1 (/ˈspʌtnɪk, ˈspʊtnɪk/, ‹See Tfd›Russian: Спутник-1, Satellite 1) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries became depleted. Aerodynamic drag caused it to fall back into the atmosphere on 4 January 1958. The world's first observation was made at the school observatory in Rodewisch (Saxony).
It was a polished metal sphere 58 cm (23 in) in diameter with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Its radio signal was easily detectable by amateur radio operators, and the 65° orbital inclination made its flight path cover virtually the entire inhabited Earth.
The satellite's success was unanticipated by the United States. This precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, part of the Cold War. The launch was the beginning of a new era of political, military, technological, and scientific developments. The word sputnik is Russian for satellite when interpreted in an astronomical context; its other meanings are spouse or traveling companion.
Tracking and studying Sputnik 1 from Earth provided scientists with valuable information. The density of the upper atmosphere could be deduced from its drag on the orbit, and the propagation of its radio signals gave data about the ionosphere.
Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No.1/5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR (now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome). The satellite traveled at a peak speed of about 8 km/s (18,000 mph), taking 96.20 minutes to complete each orbit. It transmitted on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz, which were monitored by radio operators throughout the world. The signals continued for 22 days until the transmitter batteries depleted on 26 October 1957. On 4 January 1958, after three months in orbit, Sputnik 1 burned up while reentering Earth's atmosphere, having completed 1,440 orbits of the Earth, and travelling a distance of approximately 70,000,000 km (43,000,000 mi).
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methinks tomorrow night will be a paint my nails black drink some pumpkin ale and watch The VVitch type of beat
we started watching horror movies almost every night since the end of sept. Watched like the entire insidious series which I'd never seen and that was ... one of the horror movies. I should definitely get the vvitch in rotation
ive been trickling in since like mid sept, i love spooky season but the issue is ive seen so much of the good shit already and its a genre filled with mids at best and a lotta trash. like i love horror when it hits but it disappoints me so often (sorta how i feel about anime lol). the joy middle of the road spooky flicks give me has also diminished some with age but eh its still a fun yearly tradition.
EDIT: The First Omen was pretty tight though, watched it last night and it was def the best first time watch i've had this spooky season so far.
ill have to check it out. i like horror movies but ironically haven't seen very many of the relatively modern ones (2010s on) bc i dont really watch movies in general but my partner does.
Oh you’re in for a treat then!! Mid 2010s into the 2020s the genre had kind of a renaissance imo, many many bangers in your future.
I feel like the VVitch is super divisive about who enjoys it or not.
If u fw artsy horror it’s one of the absolute GOATs if you don’t it generally plays kinda boring (I’m very much in the former camp it’s one of my favorite movies period)
Spoilers, whining
spoiler
When the baby died all the tension went out of the movie for me. If the dog dies or something the ending can still be ambiguous, or there can be twists. But if you kill the baby right away it's like "well, everyone is going to die in the most miserable, pathetic, awful way now." And it just let all of the steam out of my locomotive. At that point it was just a documentary about colonial Williamsburg. I was so obviously not having fun my date actually told me we didn't have to stay and we left.
I think I may have just known too much witch stuff going in, and it made the plot too obvious? And since it's a slow, grim, kinda minimal movie you can't really just enjoy it for the splatter like you would with a Tom Savini gore fest. There was nothing else to really go on except tension.
see for me I'm a big atmosphere ho so just like...being awash in the tone of the film/the dread/sense of place really works for me. also i see it as a character study of the family (mainly the two parents and thomasin, the other kids don't have as much texture) so knowing how the plot is gonna go doesn't take anything away from it for me (and also
spoiler
Thomasin joining the witches coven after her family is killed is still a surprise and leaves you stuff to chew on after the credits roll).
I will say it's a movie I liked-but-didn't-love when I first saw it in theaters, it really lent itself to an at home viewing where I could immerse myself more easily and didn't have to contend with crowd reactions, etc.
Oh yeah, I can see that. That movie was dripping with authenticity. I had to wash it off my shoes when I got home.
spoiler
I twigged Thomasin was going to join the witches just from the presentation and having read a bunch of crappy "Literary Classic" new England witchcraft books in school. Taylor-Joy looked young enough to be in that limbo in America where girls are going through puberty and interested in sex but Americans are absolutely not allowed to acknowledge that or do anything at all normal or helpful about it. Which, in turn, makes the rest of it - naked witches, her little brother trying to peak at her boobs, the whole thing with the mother thinking she'd slept with the dad, more transgressive than it would be with an older character without the complete ick factor you'd get with a character who wasn't ambiguously close to adulthood. Which, kudos to the film team, they nailed that part. New England witchcraft has long tied puberty and girls/young women's interest in sex together, so, I kinda just knew using my bizarre "I read too many books at too young an age" powers.
Were I see thr breakdown is the witch is about thr fears of fatherhood. So if you are a person where that emotionally resonates yhrn you are vulnerable. I sae it with a girl and my buddy who is gay and neither of them were thr same time of middle adult worried about messing up the head st a rt in life I got. So they didn't appreciate it and it wrecked me. But that it explains why movie reviewers got bit as well. They are a similar type of useless white guy to me mostly.
see i always focused on it as a depiction of religious neurosis/psychosis, a critique of patriarchy and a critique of typical family structures (specifically under patriarchy), I'm not a dad and don't have particular interest in becoming one so I didn't even think about how it could be a more universal exploration of paternal anxieties but that is totally there and is just another layer the film can work on. idk i think it's good on a buncha different levels. i will say i liked-but-didn't-love it when i first saw it in theaters, rewatches at home really cemented it as one of my GOATs (i feel that way about a lot of more atmosphere driven horror, the theater experience can kind of un-immerse me)
Ooh, sounds fun