Question

A period of geostationary satellite is

Answer 1

Hint: A geostationary satellite is also known as a geosynchronous satellite, is a satellite present in the geosynchronous orbit which has an orbital period same as of Earth’s rotational period.

Complete answer:
A satellite is an object present in space that circles around a bigger object in an orbit. There are two types of satellites: natural and artificial satellites. Natural satellite is like a moon orbiting around the Earth.

Geostationary satellite is one of the artificial satellites, which revolves around Earth’s equator above 22,236 miles in a geostationary orbit. It has an orbital period equal to Earth’s rotational period of 23 hours and 56 minutes, which is about one day on earth. This orbit is most commonly used for meteorological and communications satellites. The concept for this orbit was proposed by a British author in 1945. They seem to be stationary and relative to the surface of Earth. This orbit allows the satellites present to observe and collect information about different areas. As they are at high altitudes, some geo-satellites can monitor weather over the hemisphere of earth. Some examples of geostationary satellites are GSAT 30, SJ-20, TIBA-1 and many more. Each satellite has different longitudes and are used for different purposes.

Therefore, a period of geostationary satellite is equal to the duration of one whole day on Earth i.e., 23 hours and 56 minutes. But, we pretend a day is to be 24 hours which is about 4 minutes extra and it is known to be the average of the length of all the days in a year. To compensate for the 24 hours, we get an additional day in a leap year.

A leap year is the year which consists of an additional or extra day when compared to a normal year. It has 366 days instead of 365 days and the additional day comes in the month of february. It usually occurs once every four years.

Note: Most geostationary satellites are used to provide visible and infrared images of Earth’s surface, atmosphere observation and oceanography. Imagery of geostationary satellites are used to capture the volcanic ash or to measure the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere.