Image of the day

Picard awaits its Sun
This satellite, Picard, belonging to the CNES, the French Space Agency, is being prepared here in the Toulouse Space Centre. On 15 June 2010, it will blast off to Earth orbit from where it will observe the Sun. It is named in homage to the French astronomer Jean Picard (1620-1682) who was the first to accurately calculate the Earth’s radius (with an error of less than 0.5%, quite a remarkable result for the era).
Credit: CNES/Emmanuel Grimault

Picard satellite (CNES)

The astronomer Jean Picard (Wikipedia)

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