Chapter 14, Problem 28A

A geosynchronous Earth satellite can remain almost directly overhead in Singapore, but not San Francisco, Chicago, or New York City. Why?

To determine

To Explain: A geosynchronous earth satellite can remain almost directly overhead in Singapore, but not on San Francisco, Chicago, or New York city.

Explanation of Solution

Introduction:

Artificial satellite is the object in space that has been deliberately placed in an orbit by human. These artificial satellites are different from the natural satellite of earth, like moon. A geosynchronous satellite is the artificial satellite which revolve around the earth with the same rotational period as the earth’s rotational time. Therefore, geosynchronous satellite takes one round around the earth in about 24 hours.Geosynchronous satellites used for weather forecasting, television, communication purpose.

Due to synchronization of the satellite in the earth’s orbit, it appears to remain stationary above the point on the earth and rotates around the earth. Normally, geosynchronous satellite fixed at certain point above the earth’s equator. It is known that the position of the city Singapore is on the equator.The cities such as, San Francisco, Chicago, New York city do not lie on the equator. As mentioned earlier, the geosynchronous satellite remains in the same place above the earth’s surface. Therefore, due to fixed position of geosynchronous satellite at equator, it remains almost directly overhead in Singapore and not on San Francisco, Chicago, or New York city which are not on equator.