Anthropocene in the Solar System

Abstract

Perspectives and data derived from satellites in Earth orbit have been integral to the very apprehension of what is now being called the “anthropocene.” The launch of Sputnik 1 by the USSR in 1957, as part of the scientific programme of the International Geophysi -cal Year (IGY), enabled the first observation of Earth from outside the atmosphere. The data from the early generation of satellites was thus the first ever collected at a global scale, capturing the whole Earth. During the IGY, more than 20,000 scientists from 67 nations studied solar activity, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, ocean currents and polar ice (Odishaw 1958). As well as new technologies for collecting data in the form of satellites, this monumental effort of international cooperation was supported by computers that could process increasingly large quantities of data in a way never possible before (Lovbrand