US planetary radar may get a boost from Green Bank Observatory

[Admin]

It was serendipity that had scientists already toying with a demonstration of a new planetary radar system just as Earth lost its most powerful such instrument.

US planetary radar may get a boost from Green Bank Observatory : Read more

 

[Helio]

Perhaps this could be a precursor for similar radar imaging from the lunar far side, or is this too far-sighted?

 

[Geomartian]

The Chang’e 5 succeeded in returning lunar samples because the Arecibo bug zapper was out of commission. Was it C-4 or Semtex which cut Arecibo’s cables?

There is nothing like a million watts, focused by a 300 meter dish, to fry a space probe looking in the wrong places.

From day one Arecibo was a military weapon pretending to be a scientific instrument.

The new radar shows it is capable of spotting a satellite orbiting the moon. That does simplify the firing solution for destroying both manned and unmanned targets on or near the moon.

 

[GeoXXX]

It was serendipity that had scientists already toying with a demonstration of a new planetary radar system just as Earth lost its most powerful such instrument.

US planetary radar may get a boost from Green Bank Observatory : Read more

Haven’t the Chinese had the most powerful dish for a few years now?

 

[Geomartian]

Haven’t the Chinese had the most powerful dish for a few years now?

As far as I know it is a 500 meter receiver. I don't know if it has an offensive transmitter (electromagnetic beam) capability. It is about 2.5X better (more sensitive) than Arecibo.

Depending on beam wavelength and overall power the beam divergence can be quite narrow .

It is the functional version of the Plasma Cannon from The Empire Strikes Back. Arecibo could literally have lightning crawling all over a low orbiting satellite.

 

[rod]

The report stated "Then, the team took advantage of the telescope's superlative: It's the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world, able to study objects across 85% of the sky. So the team pointed the telescope and fired the radar system at the moon — more specifically, at the Apollo 15 mission's landing site in the Hadley-Apennine region. The team used antennas of the NRAO's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to catch the signal that bounced back."

Apparently the radar imaging resolution was to about 5-meters across, impressive. The Moon 385,000 km from Earth, a telescope using optical light with eyepiece and focal length resolving 1", can see an area ~ 1.867 km in diameter. it will not be long before some start asking to see radar images of the Apollo landing sites with the equipment left behind