Retired NASA Satellite Returns to Earth After 38 Years in Space

A NASA satellite called the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) has made its return to Earth after nearly four decades in space. Launched in 1984 from the Space Shuttle Challenger, the ERBS was released into orbit by Sally Ride, an astronaut and the first American woman to fly to space.It was part of a mission designed to measure the radiative energy budget of Earth, meaning, the amount of energy that the planet intakes from the Sun. A deeper understanding of the energy budget provides scien...