Smarter in sixty minutes.Get smarter in just 60 minutes with in60Learning. Concise and elegantly written non-fiction books and audiobooks help you learn the core subject matter in 20% of the time that it takes to read a typical book. Life is short, so explore a multitude of fascinating historical, biographical, scientific, political, and financial topics in only an hour each.Sputnik I was the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 into an elliptical low-earth orbit. Sputnik I was a polished metal sphere of 23 inches in diameter, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Launched at the 5th Tyuratam range from what is now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the satellite completed each orbit in 96.2 minutes at a speed of about 18,000 miles per hour. Sputnik I transmitted on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz for 21 days until the batteries ran out. After three months, 1440 completed orbits and having travelled a distance of about 43 miles, Sputnik burned up on 4 January 1958 as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere. Sputnik's success triggered the Space Race, a chapter of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union. It provided scientists with valuable information, marking the beginning of a new era of technological and scientific developments.