High Earth orbit
So imagine you are playing with a ball in a really big field. If you throw the ball lightly, it won't go very far and will come back down quickly. But if you throw it harder, it will go higher and farther.
Now let's pretend the ball is a satellite that we want to put into space. Satellites can orbit (go around) the Earth, just like the moon does. There are different kinds of orbits, but let's focus on high earth orbit.
High earth orbit means the satellite goes really far away from the Earth, way higher than airplanes or even the International Space Station. When a satellite is in high earth orbit, it is very useful for things like communications or weather monitoring because it can see a lot of the Earth from up there.
But getting a satellite into high earth orbit is harder than throwing a ball. It requires a lot of planning, math, and huge rockets to launch it into space. Once it's up there, the satellite has to be able to stay in orbit without falling back down. This means it has to be going really fast (about 17,500 miles per hour) to balance the pull of Earth's gravity.
Even though high earth orbit sounds really far away, it's actually just a tiny fraction of the distance to the moon or other planets. But for us on Earth, it's still pretty amazing to have things orbiting up there and sending us information from such a long distance.
Now let's pretend the ball is a satellite that we want to put into space. Satellites can orbit (go around) the Earth, just like the moon does. There are different kinds of orbits, but let's focus on high earth orbit.
High earth orbit means the satellite goes really far away from the Earth, way higher than airplanes or even the International Space Station. When a satellite is in high earth orbit, it is very useful for things like communications or weather monitoring because it can see a lot of the Earth from up there.
But getting a satellite into high earth orbit is harder than throwing a ball. It requires a lot of planning, math, and huge rockets to launch it into space. Once it's up there, the satellite has to be able to stay in orbit without falling back down. This means it has to be going really fast (about 17,500 miles per hour) to balance the pull of Earth's gravity.
Even though high earth orbit sounds really far away, it's actually just a tiny fraction of the distance to the moon or other planets. But for us on Earth, it's still pretty amazing to have things orbiting up there and sending us information from such a long distance.