Question: what else are satellites potential of and approx. how many satellites are in our solar system and can you name some of the planets they orbit

Ned Dwyer answered on 28 Feb 2016:

The sensors on satellites can give us information about the atmosphere, the surface and sometimes what´s under the surface of planets. The sensors can be sensitive to the heat radiated from the planet, or they can see the energy reflected in different parts of the electromagnet spemctru,. So a sensor might be designed to see infrared or microwave energy radiated from a planet. The energy reflected in all these different parts of the specturum can tell us different things about the planet and help us understand it bettter. There are thousands of satellites out there, the majority of them orbiting the Earth, but sometimes we send satellites to look at other planets. Venus and Mars have been very well studied as they are close to us. Satellites have also studied Saturn and all its rings. Just recently we learned a lot more about Pluto, as we recievved some very detailed photographs from it. However, it takes many years for a satellite to reach Pluto, so if you were the designer of the satellite, you might be retired before your spacecraft reached it!! We also have things like the Hubble telescope which looks far beyond our solar system.