Equinox Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Effects on satellites== One effect of equinoctial periods is the temporary disruption of [[communications satellite]]s. For all [[geostationary orbit|geostationary]] satellites, there are a few days around the equinox when the Sun goes [[transit (astronomy)|directly behind]] the satellite relative to Earth (i.e. within the beam-width of the ground-station antenna) for a short period each day. The Sun's immense power and broad radiation spectrum overload the Earth station's reception circuits with noise and, depending on antenna size and other factors, temporarily disrupt or degrade the circuit. The duration of those effects varies but can range from a few minutes to an hour. (For a given frequency band, a larger antenna has a narrower beam-width and hence experiences shorter duration "Sun outage" windows.)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.intelsat.com/tools-resources/library/satellite-101/satellite-sun-interference/ |title=Satellite Sun Interference |website=Intelsat |language=en-US |access-date=20 March 2019}}</ref> Satellites in [[geostationary orbit]] also experience difficulties maintaining power during the equinox because they have to travel through [[Earth's shadow]] and rely only on battery power. Usually, a satellite travels either north or south of the Earth's shadow because Earth's axis is not directly perpendicular to a line from the Earth to the Sun at other times. During the equinox, since geostationary satellites are situated above the Equator, they are in Earth's shadow for the longest duration all year.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://corpblog.viasat.com/how-satellites-are-affected-by-the-spring-and-autumn-equinoxes/ |title=How satellites are affected by the spring and autumn equinoxes |last=Miller |first=Alex |date=17 April 2018 |website=Inside Viasat blog |language=en-US |access-date=20 March 2019}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page