This week 68 years ago, July 1, 1957 marked the beginning of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), an 18-month collaboration between scientists in 67 countries to comprehensively study the Earth, its poles, its atmosphere, and its interactions with the Sun. While you may never have heard of the International Geophysical Year, you’ve certainly benefited from some of the accomplishments that came from it. Just to name a few:
Satellites and Precise Earth Measurements
It was during the IGY that the then-USSR launched the Sputnik satellite, followed by the US’s Explorer I satellite a few months later. This was also the year that solar power was used for the first time to power the second US-launched satellite, Vanguard I.
In preparation for the IGY, the USSR and USA had announced their plans to launch artificial satellites during that year in the early 1950s. Project VANGUARD was the name for the US effort to launch satellites, which succeeded after the USSR launched Sputnik in October 1957 and began the space race. Explorer I was the first successful US launch, in January 1958. Explorer I provided the first data ever transmitted from space, using a cosmic ray detector invented by physicist James Van Allen, who also happens to be the person who had come up with the idea for the IGY back in 1950! One of the discoveries made during the IGY by Project VANGUARD satellites was the existence of Earth’s radiation belts, which now bear his name: the Van Allen radiation belts.
Here are some details from a map made for the IGY, showcasing new discoveries or imagining discoveries that had not been made yet.
The Army Map Service, which I discussed in a recent webinar about WWII maps that you can now watch online here, was the premier source of military mapping for the United States throughout the 20th century. They were instrumental in the 1950s during the Korean conflict and in the establishment of NATO, and they also got involved in the IGY.
One key capacity that made AMS so important for so long was their expertise in geodesy, which refers to the exact measurements of the Earth’s size and shape. AMS was responsible for the radio tracking of Project VANGUARD satellites during the International Geophysical Year, as shown in a commemorative book written by AMS staff for their organizational 50th birthday in 1960.
According to a more in-depth report about their work in Project VANGUARD, AMS built a number of monitoring stations around the world that allowed for signal transmission from satellites and precise measurements that have advanced precision technologies on Earth of all kinds.
The Ocean Floor and Plate Tectonics
Coming back to Earth from outer space, it was also during the IGY that Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp released their first physiographic map of the North Atlantic Ocean, which along with a presentation by Heezen at a conference that year, visually proved to the world that the concept of plate tectonics was real. This discovery launched the scientific community into finally understanding earthquakes, volcanoes, and the origins of the Earth’s continents.
For more about Heezen and Tharp’s work written previously on our blog, see the 2018 post Extremities of the Earth: The Lowest Natural Point by my colleague Julie Stoner. The following map is a monumental version of their work published in 1977 for National Geographic, painted by the artist Heinrich C. Berann.
Understanding the World’s Weather
The IGY also marked the first time that the global scientific community collaborated on weather mapping around the world, building a much greater understanding of climate-wide weather patterns that had not existed previously.
In 1960, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution published the Atlantic Ocean Atlas of Temperature and Salinity Profiles and Data from the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958, which contains colorful data visualizations of previously poorly understood temperature, salinity, and bathythermographic data from many parts of the world. As noted on page 4 of the atlas, a major reason for the successes and innovations from these measurements was that the IGY principles focused on “repeating certain earlier surveys in order to study time-scales.” Standardized and repeatable data collection is a hallmark of scientific study in the present day, and the resources and attention devoted to it during IGY made breakthroughs possible.
Additionally and in the same vein, the US Weather Bureau (now part of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) published a series of world weather maps for IGY showing synoptic weather maps of the world between July 1957 and December 1958. While the Woods Hole focused on patterns in the oceans, the Weather Bureau focused on patterns in the stratosphere, seeking to understand upper air data using weather balloons and other signal-capturing devices. As noted in the introduction to these maps, “With the beginning of the IGY in July 1957… increasing penetrations to high levels by aircraft, rockets, and other man-made products developed a requirement for a detailed knowledge of temperatures and flow patterns in the stratosphere.” Again, repeatable and sustained data measurements made it possible to understand the stratosphere better at a time when humans and human-made objects were traveling through it in ways that were unimaginable just a few years previously.
Science and Peace in Antarctica
Last but not least for this list, expeditions conducted during the IGY laid the groundwork for exploration of Antarctica and the preservation of the continent as a neutral research space.
Twelve countries established bases on the ice shelf and islands of Antarctica, where they conducted groundbreaking research on meteorological predictions, glacier analysis, fresh water analysis, and seismology (the science of earthquakes). This multinational collaboration led to the signing of the Antarctic Treaty on December 1, 1959, which permanently established Antarctica as international territory for scientific research, free of nuclear weapons. Nations continued to sign the treaty over the decades. Below is an updated map of the Antarctic Treaty’s signatories as of 1977.
Even at a time of major geopolitical tension and competition, the world’s scientists were able to work together in the late 1950s and make lasting contributions to bettering the lives of billions of people through better understanding of our shared planet.
Learn More and See Many More Images from the International Geophysical Year
- See a photo essay from NASA about the IGY on its 65th anniversary
- See the Army Map Service 50th anniversary book in full, with an article from Stanford University Libraries about its significance
- See a fuller article from the Army Map Service about their work during Project VANGUARD
- See NASA’s history on the launch of the USSR satellite Sputnik
- See a photo essay from NASA about the plans to launch artificial satellites during IGY