Image Credit: NOAA

If all of those hundreds of satellites are out in the farthest reaches of our atmosphere, what keeps them from being sucked away by the sun since they are apparently hanging by a thread out there? The newest satellite is supposed to go into the L1…

“DSCOVR’s orbit will be at what is called the L1 point in space. L1 means the Lagrange point 1 which is approximately one million miles from Earth. Once launched, it will take approximately 110 days to arrive at its orbit.

At L1, the gravitational forces between the sun and Earth balance the centrifugal forces of a satellite to provide a quasi-stable orbit point requiring fewer orbital corrections (and therefore reducing fuel consumption) for the spacecraft to remain in its operational location for a longer period of time. Placing DSCOVR in orbit around the L1 point provides definite advantages, including the quality of the solar wind observations.”