††A satellite, properly called an artificial satellite, is a man-made object travelling in orbit around a planet. The idea for the satellite appeared long before technology could implement it. Records show that in 1687 Isaac Newton suggested that artificial satellites could be launched with a cannon. The first satellite to be successfully launched was the Russian Sputnik 1. Modern satellites have many purposes including communications, monitoring the weather and tracking military movements. They were first used for transmitting television broadcasts in 1962. Now, at any one time, there are several thousand artificial satellites orbiting the Earth.
