... Perhaps the most interesting satellites in this group are the ones sent into distant orbits, some of them extending well past the Moon--e.g. the WIND spacecraft pictured here. Among them is a long series of IMP s (Interplanetary Monitoring Platforms) which sampled the Earth's distant magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, and the surrounding interplanetary region; IMP-8 is still returning good data, more than 20 years after its launch. ...
... Spacecraft . 29a. Satellite looking up . ... 29e. Explorers of distant space . Space Index . ... Many "down-looking" satellites also carry out local observations, among them Polar, Viking, Freja and satellites of the GOES and DMSP series. ... Other explorers of the distant magnetosphere have included the three ISEE spacecraft (International Sun-Earth Explorers), Polar in an elliptical polar orbit with cameras observing the polar aurora, and Image observing energetic neutral atoms. ...
... Taken from the NASA/JPL information summary "Our Solar System at a Glance". ... Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars. They called these objects planets, meaning wanderers, and named them after Roman deities -- Jupiter , king of the gods; Mars , the god of war; Mercury , messenger of the gods; Venus , the god of love and beauty, and Saturn , father of Jupiter and god of agriculture. ... Space History Rocket History . ...