5 Things: Trash, Basketball and Sputnik

Weather: Today will be foggy with a chance of showers. Rains will continue through the evening, according to the National Weather Service.

1. Check out the Tiverton Recycling Committee meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall and hear from Phil Hadley Anaerobic Digestion  Solutions on how Tiverton could turn trash into treasure.

2. Office hours are today with your local patch editor, Erin Tiernan. Head over to the Black Goose Cafe from 1 to 2 p.m.

3. Tiverton Junior basketball player evaluations are today at 6 p.m. at the Pocasset Schol.

4. Running for office in Tiverton or Little Compton? Take part in our 2012 Election Guide, fill out the candidate profile questionnaire.

5. On this day in 1957, the Soviet Union inaugurates the "Space Age" with its launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for "satellite," was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic. Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes. Traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles. Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators. Those in the United States with access to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times a day. In January 1958, Sputnik's orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere, according to History.com