Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index A geostationary orbit occurs when an object (satellite) is placed 37,000 km (22,300 miles) above the Earth's equator with the characteristic that, from a fixed observation point on the Earth's surface, it appears motionless. When a satellite is placed in an inclined orbit it is moved along a longitudinal axis away from the equatorial plane by some amount. While the satellite remains geosynchronous (completing one revolution every 24 hours) it is no longer stationary, and from a fixed observation point on Earth, it would appear to trace a figure-eight (with the lobes extending North and South). NASA maintains a Java based real-time display of most commercial satellites which can be helpful in visualizing the various orbits. External link: http://science.nasa.gov/RealTime/jtrack/3d/ This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.