Starfish Prime caused six or more satellites to fail, as radiation damaged their solar arrays or electronics, including the first commercial relay communication satellite, Telstar, as well as the United Kingdom's first satellite, Ariel 1. Detectors on Telstar, TRAAC, Injun, and Ariel 1 were used to measure distribution of the radiation produced by the tests. In 1963, it was reported that Starfish Prime had created a belt of MeV electrons. In 1968, it was reported that some Starfish electrons had remained for 5 years. Starfish Prime Starfish Prime was a July 9, 1962 high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States, a
Starfish incapable of much differentiation and understanding the regrowth, repair and cloning processes in starfish may have implications for human medicine. Starfish also have an unusual ability to expel foreign objects from their bodies, which makes them difficult to tag for research tracking purposes. An aboriginal Australian fable retold by the Welsh school headmaster William Jenkyn Thomas (1870–1959) tells how some animals needed a canoe to cross the ocean. Whale had one but refused to lend it, so Starfish kept him busy, telling him stories and grooming him to remove parasites, while the others stole the canoe. When Whale realized the