Using cosmic radiation to detect stealth?

[John Connor]

Possible? I read about how they were going to use cosmic radiation to analyze the pyramids. I think you could have ground-based cosmic radiation sensors detect changes in the reception of the rays as a stealth place flies over head.

 

[A5]

The blanket term "cosmic radiation" is not very meaningful because it covers the entire EM spectrum. Do you have a specific type of radiation in mind?

In general, most of the things that are able to pass through our atmosphere without scattering are not common enough to be useful for this kind of application.

 

[Jeff7]

It looks like this particular application is using cosmic ray muons.

 

[BrainEater]

I believe he means 'cosmic rays'....Higher energy than Gamma.

I don't think 'cosmic ray' detection is really viable.
Same reason 'Gamma-Ray-Photovoltaics' don't exist.Cosmic ray detectors are very large objects that use secondary particle reactions to operate.

Cosmic rays would go through an aircraft as easily as 100 miles of air.

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Now , cosmic gamma/X-ray sources.....you might have something there.

:thumbsup:

edit :

Check out : http://www.hamamatsu.com/us/en/product/category/index.html

Hamamatsu is the world leader in photonic detection.They make every possible means of photon detection from microwave to gamma.I use one of their gamma detectors at work everyday.
We use it to verify 'fill-level' on our beer bottles and beer cans.

;D

 

[John Connor]

Yeah, I should have stated cosmic rays in hindsight.

 

[BrainEater]

I gotta say , I like this idea.I also think this is already under development in the x-ray spectrum.mebbie not tho.

We already have x-ray satellites in orbit , and x-ray ground based stuff...
Seems like just an app to me.

 

[John Connor]

I'm an amateur inventor and let me tell you. Every stinking time I think of something someone or usually some company has beat me to it. So if I can think of it, chances are KXTA (Area-51) might have thought about it too that experiments in stealth. I mean, how many knew about stealth helicopters when we learned about them during the Usama raid? That, I did not know. And yet we don't even know what they fully look like.

I have a lot of other game changer ideas in the military realm that could swing the pendulum the other way if we went to war with Russia or China. Of course using cosmic radiation doesn't nesasary help ourselves out for stealth. But I also thought of an idea on how to defeat cosmic radiation stealth detection as well. LOL!

 

[Skunk-Works]

I bet they thought of this already.

 

[MongGrel]

NM, was going to respond to Skunk-Works.

Walked on a landmine, I'll see myself out.

 

[BrainEater]

I bet they thought of this already.

We agree.

I would almost say the entire earth is already (or on the way) covered by x-ray photography , both passive and active...

I'll just leave this here :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_astronomy_satellites

:sneaky:

 

[A5]

We agree.

I would almost say the entire earth is already (or on the way) covered by x-ray photography , both passive and active...

I'll just leave this here :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_astronomy_satellites

:sneaky:

The earth's atmosphere is opaque to X-Rays. That would be an epic waste of money.

 

[BrainEater]

Hahah !
Epic waste of money ?!! You are kidding right ?
----------

The term 'X-ray' applies to a very wide spectrum of frequencies.
Yes , water is opaque to certain X-rays .
You do know we can literally make X-ray detector chips as easily as printing transistors !!!!

At this point in our technology , I'd be very upset if we didn't even have 3D imaging from microwave to UV.

Just sayin , I can add.

:thumbsup:

 

[Brian Stirling]

If they find something able to see a stealth plane I'd wager it would see a billion more things that are false positives making the technique useless!


Brian

 

[BrainEater]

Actually , no , I don't think so.

That's one thing computers are very good at , sifting.

-------

Allow me to diverge from the OP about 'stellar energy sources' .

1: Take all the current x-ray satellites currently in orbit and point them at Earth....Or possibly purpose build 10 or 20 satellites....

2 : Build ground based free-electron lasers designed to operate in the x-ray range.Make them scan quickly , from soft x-rays to hard/gamma.

3 : Take pictures !

4 : Profit ?!!

:biggrin:

 

[A5]

Hahah !
Epic waste of money ?!! You are kidding right ?
----------

The term 'X-ray' applies to a very wide spectrum of frequencies.
Yes , water is opaque to certain X-rays .
You do know we can literally make X-ray detector chips as easily as printing transistors !!!!

At this point in our technology , I'd be very upset if we didn't even have 3D imaging from microwave to UV.

Just sayin , I can add.

:thumbsup:

You obviously have a fanciful imagination and a very loose grasp of actual science.

See this chart for actual facts:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_electromagnetic_transmittance_or_opacity.jpg

Taken in whole, the Earth's atmosphere is basically opaque to everything besides near-UV, Visible light, certain wavelengths of IR, and a block of radio waves.

 

[Jeff7]

Yeah, I should have stated cosmic rays in hindsight.

Cosmic rays, cosmic radiation....same thing. Some of them aren't even "rays" in the sense of "rays of light," but are instead particles like protons.

We agree.

I would almost say the entire earth is already (or on the way) covered by x-ray photography , both passive and active...

I'll just leave this here :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_astronomy_satellites

:sneaky:

Except those satellites are above the atmosphere, looking at EM radiation coming from beyond Earth.

So unless you're looking for incoming alien spacecraft that are also emitting x-rays, these satellites won't do much good for Earth-based viewing.



As for a muon detector capable of seeing the shadow of an aircraft, that'd depend on:
- Muon flux at Earth's surface.
- How well an aircraft absorbs them versus air.
- The resolution of your muon camera, patent pending.

I have a feeling that we won't be seeing one of these for a very very long time.

Hahah !
Epic waste of money ?!! You are kidding right ?
----------

The term 'X-ray' applies to a very wide spectrum of frequencies.
Yes , water is opaque to certain X-rays .
You do know we can literally make X-ray detector chips as easily as printing transistors !!!!

At this point in our technology , I'd be very upset if we didn't even have 3D imaging from microwave to UV.

Just sayin , I can add.

:thumbsup:

Take a look at the opacity chart again.
Our atmosphere is opaque to everything from gamma rays up to shortwave UV. The x-ray spectrum is in that range.

Actually , no , I don't think so.

That's one thing computers are very good at , sifting.

They can also really suck at identifying simple shapes.

Some of the machines at work use high-res grayscale vision systems to identify electronic component, some of which are just simple rectangles. Things that can confuse it:
- A rectangular part has slightly rounded edges.
- There's a bit of dirt that "breaks" the continuous edge of the rectangle.
- The part was picked up at an angle that's a bit too far from its normal orientation
- There's dirt off to the side of the part.
- The camera's slightly out of focus.

"Confusion" in this case means that the machine might not be able to see a rectangle at all, or it might measure the size incorrectly.

Asking a computer to do shape detection with high reliability and without also generating a large number of false positives is not a simple task. Not only that, but you'd be scanning the sky using a very dim backlight (low incidence of cosmic rays), a low-sensitivity detector (some cosmic rays can pass through solid matter a fair ways, including the matter in a detector), and you'll want to do it quickly to spot a high-speed, possibly hypersonic, aircraft. That aircraft might look like.....oh, I don't know, something. What shape would a secret aircraft look like as a cosmic radiation shadow? Would a high-flying small bird look like a hypersonic aircraft at high altitude? How's the computer going to know?

WWIII starts because a bird spooked a supercomputer.

-------

Allow me to diverge from the OP about 'stellar energy sources' .

1: Take all the current x-ray satellites currently in orbit and point them at Earth....Or possibly purpose build 10 or 20 satellites....

2 : Build ground based free-electron lasers designed to operate in the x-ray range.Make them scan quickly , from soft x-rays to hard/gamma.

3 : Take pictures !

4 : Profit ?!!

:biggrin:

Also, if you point x-ray satellites at Earth, they'll just see the x-ray radiation that the planet is passively producing, which is virtually nothing. Telescopes don't shine beams of light out to allow them to see things, they're just observing whatever hits their detector.
It'd also be really out of focus.

 

[BrainEater]

You obviously have a fanciful imagination and a very loose grasp of actual science.
https://

Both ? neither ? mebbie ?!!

----

I thought it was the water in the atmosphere that made things opaque.
That varies.

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All good points, Jeff7 .
I am probably wrong on a lot of stuff.I don't mind learning.
So let's get closer to the OP : Lets throw out x-rays.

I use gamma ray detectors every day.I know they make gamma ccd's.
I'm not sure of the upper limit on gamma detectors , it probably bleeds into muon detectors.

---

Let's expand this conversation , back to the OP.
So right now we can 'print' gamma detectors.mebbie euv gets us higher frequency detectors ?

How would all of you design a system like this ?

:sneaky:

 

[A5]

According to wikipedia, muons have a mean lifetime of 2.2 microseconds, after which they decay into an electron and 2 neutrinos.

Even if it were travelling at the speed of light, a muon (on average) will only be able to go 0.66 km before decaying. This means it would not be a very useful medium to detect anything of value.

 

[BrainEater]

It seems to me , The biggest problem would be the passive nature of the system.
Even if they invented chip sized cosmic ray detectors tomorrow , it's similar to how they find planets in distant systems : they look for the dimming of the star.
You might be able to say "Yea , there's something there " but whether you would get any relevant positional data , who knows.

I'm certainly curious about just how far an x-ray laser will go through air.

 

[A5]

The rule of thumb for medical workers is 2 meters.

This paper from 1948 (http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/40/jresv40n5p393_A1b.pdf) gives a formula, since it depends on the initial energy level of the X-Ray. Figure 4 is a decent place to start, too.

For a 100kV X-Ray, the formula puts 99% loss at roughly 2.7m.

 

[Jeff7]

According to wikipedia, muons have a mean lifetime of 2.2 microseconds, after which they decay into an electron and 2 neutrinos.

Even if it were travelling at the speed of light, a muon (on average) will only be able to go 0.66 km before decaying. This means it would not be a very useful medium to detect anything of value.

Muons can travel much farther than that: Time dilation at relativistic speeds.

Because of that, time is passing more slowly for the muon, so it can cover more ground before decaying.

 

[BrainEater]

I did some reading today.

I am wrong about gamma ccd's.While yes , they exist , they are 2 stage devices like a scintillation plate.Hamamatsu makes 'multi-channel-plate' detectors into the gamma range , but not quite the same thing as a ccd.

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That's a good read A5.The old manuals are always better.

I don't think x-ray lasers of that energy exist.( yet ?)

The Linac Coherent Light Source at Stanford University ;
https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/facilities/lcls
is tunable in the x-ray spectrum from 200-2500 eV.
This is the most powerful x-ray laser on earth.

The last thing I looked up , was the whole 'optic window' thang.I'm wrong on that too .It's actually the oxygen in the water (and atmosphere) that's a huge x-ray absorber.
There is however an x-ray window at about 1000 eV....No I have not looked at nitrogen x-ray absorption yet.

:biggrin:

 

[Puffnstuff]

If we were to ever develop something like a mass in motion sensor then it would render stealth obsolete unless you could mask the mass. Since all mass affects gravity being able to pinpoint the location generating the shift would give away the object or mass producing it.

 

[Sheep221]

If you like military aviation, enlisting in air force or navy(they fly a lot too) could be a good job for you.

 

[BrainEater]

If we were to ever develop something like a mass in motion sensor then it would render stealth obsolete unless you could mask the mass. Since all mass affects gravity being able to pinpoint the location generating the shift would give away the object or mass producing it.

Yep.

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This discussion really is just a flight of fancy , but interesting all the same.While gravity wave detectors , and free-electron x-ray lasers exist , they are 100+ acre complexes , not chips we can put into cellphones.

heheh.

:thumbsup: