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Using GPS To Detect Secret Nuclear Tests
Harperdog writes "This article details how GPS can help detect secret nuclear tests, giving the US more reason to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Here's a quote about the 2009 North Korea test: 'At the time, however, the May 25 bomb also sent a different signature, this one into the atmosphere. It did not release radioactive gas or dust, as would be the case for a bomb detonated on the Earth's surface. Rather, it released a shockwave — a bubble of disturbed air that spread out from the test site across the planet and high into the ionosphere. ... We quickly gathered data from 11 GPS receivers — six belonging to the South Korean GPS network and five belonging to the International GNSS Service and scattered around Eastern Asia. The data indicated a sudden spike in atmospheric electron density just after the underground test.'"
This work actually measured Total Electron Content, not electron density (a related, but different, phenomenon).
Maps of vertical and slant atmospheric electron density over the U.S. are here.
The US GPS constellation (NAVSTAR) has photodetectors to detect the distinctive flash of an above-ground nuclear test, among other detectors.
Not useful for an underground test, but a little known function nonetheless.
I still have not heard any definitive proof that it was not a large about conventional explosives. There are many examples of conventional explosions large enough in the past, such as the Texas City explosion or the Lochnagar mine during WWI.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Doesn't this sound like overkill and/or reduncancy?
There must be more efficient ways, e.g. Twitter...
http://mashable.com/2011/08/25/animated-map-twitter-earthquake/
Yes, Twitter of all hyped crap.
I am confused as to what this has to do with the Test Ban Treaty. The primary argument against the Test Ban Treaty is that it does not allow for the testing of new designs of nuclear weapons. It, also, does not allow for the testing of existing stockpiles to see if they are still functional.
It has been U.S. policy from the beginning to maintain a nuclear stockpile that can function as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons by any and all others that have them. If the U.S. does not know whether or not their weapons are functional, why would anyone believe that they have the means to retaliate?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
When the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was formalized in 1996, the United States was among nine nations that did not ratify it. In part, US officials objected that technologies of the time were not reliable enough to ensure accurate detection of secret nuclear tests.
wow dosn't that seem to be bad planning? Just ask japan how nuclear materials and fault lines mix.
Not to mention they will sink into the oil. Wait....this might be a good thing. SOMEONE GET A MOP!
How do I set up my Nuvi to detect bomb blasts?
It has nothing, but the poster has an axe to grind. I'm thoroughly sick of those "that evil nucular stuff will doom us" crowd.
Nukes, and even more, nuclear power plants, are dangerous but efficient. And that vile ban treaty is what destroyed the most promising project for interstellar travel.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
> It has been U.S. policy from the beginning to maintain a nuclear stockpile that can function as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons by any and all others that have them.
To be fair, it was US policy at the beginning to build the bomb and win the second world war.
Any policies about stockpiles as a deterrent came later--I would guess the instant the Russians set off an A-bomb.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Thank you. That makes the summary much more sensible.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I always find comments like your funny. We know that conspiracies happen. We know that our government takes part in them. Enough of them have been uncovered to make that clear. We know that the government will use a lie about nuclear weapons as an excuse to go to war. How is your comment any less crazy than the the people you are referring to?
You don't seem to understand exactly what happened in japan.
As they say in the observation sciences. Its known that the position of ionosphere, humidity, atmospheric charge, etc. can affect GPS signal timing slightly. In turn these erors can be inverted (tomographically) to give maps of these phenomena.
GPS satellites contain a package called NDS or Nuclear detonation Detection System. They have since the very first launch of the very first satellite. I know this because I was in the USAF and worked the ground station for NDS starting with Block 1 GPS satellites when they were just early test platforms to prove the GPS technology. So, this is absolutely nothing new to me. Sincerely, Symnron Get Moose and Squirrel!
I don't disagree that it took far more then an earthquake to cause the issues in the nuclear plant, I also highly doubt Iran has 1/10th of the shielding or safety measures that the Japanese plant had.
Interestingly AFTAC has been monitoring nuclear weapons testing worldwide since long before 1996 and had/has the means to measure them very accurately. Too bad the USA didn't look to its own technology(/sarcasm). Get Moose and Squirrel!
"Why is HAARP such an attractive target for conspiracy theorists? HAARP is a gigantic, high-energy, Pentagon-funded gizmo located in the remote Alaskan wilderness that plays around with the Earth’s ionosphere, but whose purpose seems deeply mysterious to the scientifically uninformed."
You assume that the United States is the only country capable of nuclear detonation monitoring.
That was a total non sequitur.
yes. But good luck getting a 100 thousand tons of normal explosives down a hole without anyone noticing--just to fake a nuclear bomb. It would be easier to make a real one.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
My school text books had long articles on how the seismic signatures of earthquakes and explosions differed.
That was in 1978.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
The article is describing how you can use the receivers to determine ionospheric and other disturbances by measuring the rate of deviation in radio frequency reception. GPS and ionoshperic modeling is common in GPS to determine how much interference is affecting the timing, and so you can then measure an "approximate additional" disturbance. These are all things any civilian who is a math geek can theoretically do.
What is being described here, AFTAC and NUDET, are onlyp performed by military organizations. On GPS there are two bands for civilian use, since the beginning, which is L1 and L2. The above techniques use those (L1 and 2). NUDET payload, which is a tertiary mission of GPS, has many sensors which then send the data via L3 to AFTAC. It's been about 15 years since I was a GPS satellite operator, so there may be additional sensors, but at the Block 1, 2 and 2A generations, you had optical (BDP), X-ray (BDX), and dosimeters (BDD), to name a few. The satellite in view will accumulate the data, and then cross-link them to every GPS satellite in view. Those satellites will downlink via L3. The logic is that no matter which satellite in the 24 constellation, through cross linking at least one will then send it to Shreiver AFB where AFTAC is located (actually was inside the 2 SOPS GPS ops MOD during the 90s). The NUDET data is entirely for Test Ban Treaty enforcement and not early warning. So this is why I laughed after the N. Korea test when the official stance was, "We don't know." I promise you from all the sensors we have, space, ground and sea based, we know exceptionally precisely what, where and how big it was. We just won't release it, giving the enemy a glimpse into our capabilities. Those from a political and military stand point that have a need to know, do.
100 thousand tons? A kiloton is only one thousand tons.
Sleep is futile.
Nukes are not that small--about 3-5kT is the smallest and its hard to make that small. Even the first ones where about 10-25kT. And fusion needs to be bigger to work.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!