Chinese ghost radar moves at ‘near-light-speed’ to detect submarines (www.scmp.com)
from yogthos@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.ml on 02 Dec 13:27
https://lemmy.ml/post/23138161

archive.is/aC1ym

www.researching.cn/articles/OJ97a9c4dcc97720f3

#technology

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queermunist@lemmy.ml on 02 Dec 14:56 collapse

… isn’t that just how radar works? A radio emission is sent out, bounces off an object, and then detectors measure the difference?

The fact that this works from the sky is definitely new, but I think all radar is light speed by definition.

yogthos@lemmy.ml on 02 Dec 15:06 collapse

looks like the innovation here is with using ELF spectrum which penetrates seawater

queermunist@lemmy.ml on 02 Dec 15:17 collapse

I figured something cool was happening to allow them to use radar from the air. So it’s not even radar, it’s like, ELFdar.

Really weird they went for the “lightspeed” angle tho

yogthos@lemmy.ml on 02 Dec 15:22 next collapse

for sure, I find most of the time science reporting actually makes it harder to understand what the tech does rather than explain it

lemmeout@lemm.ee on 02 Dec 15:40 collapse

In the spirit of dumbing down the plot to make sure viewers don’t turn away, they end up making totally nonsensical (if not misleading) content.

yogthos@lemmy.ml on 02 Dec 16:03 collapse

I suspect that a lot of the time people doing science reporting have a fairly tenuous grasp on the subject themselves as well.

halykthered@lemmy.ml on 03 Dec 00:16 collapse

RF is still RF, the only difference between what they’re shooting into the water to detect subs and what you’re shooting into your hot pockets is output power and frequency. It’s still radio detection and ranging, just at a frequency not typically used for it. Microwave frequencies are used for what one would consider to be typical radar applications, while extremely low frequency would be better suited for communications.

queermunist@lemmy.ml on 03 Dec 00:39 collapse

Infrared isn’t red, though. Seems like it’s worth making a distinction between different frequencies if the way it interacts with matter is different.