A number (well 2, that's a number) have queried "Like you could see an object the size of a beachball from 100 miles away!"
Now I do not know if was really true, but the apparent size of Sputnik I at 577 km altitude would be about 0.2" of arc.
The apparent size of Uranus much larger at 3 to 4" of arc, and it is just visible to the naked eye.
But the sun's intensity at Uranus is only about 0.2% of that at earth and the reflectivity of Sputnik I would have been much higher than that of Uranus, so who say that someone could not see Sputnik I if it was in sunlight and the observer in the dark.
So it is highly possible that Sputnik I could have been seen, however much people these days might ridicule the idea!
By the way John and others, how do these random bits of rock heated to white heat in the thermosphere manage to turn up exactly on time revolution after revolution?
Smart little bits of rock those!
Then you claim that "they're basically big lumps of rock that've been heated
white-hot in the thermosphere... ".
John are you really trying to ridicule Flat Earth Society?Data on the thermosphere shows that the matter density there is too low that an exposed thermometer would read well below zero as heat lost due to radiation would far outweigh any gained from the little matter up there. Probably at the lower end of the thermoshpere an object would gain some heat
radiated from earth, but any idea of
"white hot objects" in nonsensical - right into İntikam territory!Secondly, Flat Earthers (plus that agnostic Legba) all seem to
deny the possibility rockets travelling in space. Well, however did YOU learn of the properties of the thermosphere from?
Yes, I know! It was from sounding rockets and satellites launched and maintained by NASA!
So please either
admit that NASA does launch rockets and satellites into the "infinite vacuum of space" (that's for Papa's benefit!)
or just take back all the stupid nonsense you put forward about the
thermosphere.
By the way if you haven't the understanding to see the significance in the video shown in Woody
Operation Moonwatch « Reply #13 on: June 24, 2016, 08:47:43 PM », I honestly pity you, you are missing so much of the Universe around us.