A plan to turn the atmosphere into an enormous sensor(economist.com) |
A plan to turn the atmosphere into an enormous sensor(economist.com) |
The first 27 months of the programme will be dedicated to understanding the science behind ripples in both the ionosphere and the electrically neutral atmosphere below it, and then building computer simulations of what is going on. These will be tested to see if they can replicate accurately effects seen in the past.
Once the team have a better understanding of the basic science, they will proceed to the second stage: field trials. This will involve three tests at three-month intervals in which researchers attempt to locate pertinent events, such as storm cells, mining operations and earthquakes. If that works, the project will then move on to matters of military interest by spying on missile launches, tracking aircraft and even watching underground bunkers being dug. The result, if all goes well, may be the world’s first true panopticon.
Hopefully they spend more time on the atmospheric stuff than the military stuff. Exciting news, if the former.
[1] interplanetary on my part, but I have no illusions that our funders didn't have further intraplanetary applications in mind. I was young and needed the money.
[2] https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-DOC-19-PUB-...
(as far as watching bunkers being dug, I'm pretty sure LIDAR already gives a much cleaner signal)
There are many such telescopes around the world: MAGIC (2 telescopes), FACT (1), HESS (5), Veritas (4). The biggest assembly of such telescopes is currently under construction - Cherenkov Telescole Array [3] with hundred of telescopes in Paranal, Chile and 20 in La Palma, Canary Islands. One large telescope with a mirror of 23m diameter is already operating [4].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IACT
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_shower_(physics)
> which move faster than the speed of light
Citation needed. I was of the understanding that this is impossible, and your first two links provide no evidence to the contrary.
Key words "in the air". As they can't go faster than C in this medium[0], they are forced to slow down, and emit this lost kinetic energy as radiation - my understanding.
Something a bit better, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
Cherenkov radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that medium. A classic example of Cherenkov radiation is the characteristic blue glow of an underwater nuclear reactor.
[0] I realise this seems contradictory - they can't but for a short time they are - I don't understand that either.
> which move faster than the speed of light in the air
The speed of light in air is slightly less than the speed of light in a vacuum (c)
Nothing is going faster than c
That PDF is a gold mine by the way.
> as far as watching bunkers being dug, I'm pretty sure LIDAR already gives a much cleaner signal
The proposed applications are probably nothing more than something to get the ball rolling but can already be done very effectively today. I hesitate to be overly skeptical because an atmospheric panopticon would probably have more applications than they would imagine or dare to propose themselves.
[0] https://www.quora.com/What-is-precisely-the-speed-of-light-i...
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dmytro_Vasylyev/publica...
[2] https://uspas.fnal.gov/materials/10MIT/Review_of_Relativity....
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin_limit
