On February 10, 1958, scientists at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory bounced radar waves off of Venus.
At the time, Venus was at a point in its orbit called inferior conjunction, where it is directly in between the Earth and the sun. Scientists beamed a radar signal toward Venus, which was about 28 million miles away at the time. It took about 5 minutes for the signal to bounce off of Venus and return to Earth. This was slightly shorter than they anticipated, which means that Venus was actually closer to Earth than scientists believed at the time.
At the time, Venus was at a point in its orbit called inferior conjunction, where it is directly in between the Earth and the sun. Scientists beamed a radar signal toward Venus, which was about 28 million miles away at the time. It took about 5 minutes for the signal to bounce off of Venus and return to Earth. This was slightly shorter than they anticipated, which means that Venus was actually closer to Earth than scientists believed at the time.
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00:00On this day in space.
00:03On February 10th, 1958, scientists at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory bounced radar waves off of Venus.
00:09At the time, Venus was at a point in its orbit called Inferior Conjunction,
00:13where it is directly in between the Earth and the Sun.
00:16Scientists beamed a radar signal toward Venus, which was about 28 million miles away at the time.
00:21It took about five minutes for the signal to bounce off of Venus and return to Earth.
00:26This was slightly shorter than they anticipated,
00:28which means that Venus was actually closer to Earth than scientists believed at the time.
00:32And that's what happened on this day in space.