Sixty years ago today, on a drab steppe in southern Kazakhstan, the Soviet Union launched humanity’s first artificial satellite into Earth’s orbit. It was a shiny sphere of aluminum, magnesium, and ...

A model of Sputnik, the little orb that could. Image: NASA View Slideshow The standard Sputnik story goes like this: It was the launch of this metal ball that forced the United States to elevate the ...

When Sputnik became the first manmade satellite to enter space on Oct. 4, 1957, its alien beeping shocked America. Its signal stopped after just three weeks, and three months later sky gazers could no ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. On the Saturday morning in 1957 after the Soviet Union launched the ...

You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email. Exactly 58 years ago, the former Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the first artificial ...

When the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite 60 years ago, it marked both the beginning of space exploration and the start of a race between Moscow and Washington. Sputnik, the tiny ...

One of the few surviving Soviet Sputniks created during Russia’s Cold War space race with the United States sold at auction at Bonhams for $847,500 on Wednesday, September 27. The piece sold was a ...