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Could ghost imaging spy satellite be a game changer for Chinese military?
China is developing a new type of spy satellite using ghost imaging technology that could change the game of military cat and mouse within a decade, according to scientists involved in the project.
Existing camouflage techniques – from simple smoke bombs used to hide tanks or soldiers on battlefields to the hi-tech radar absorption materials on a stealth aircraft or warship – would be of no use against ghost imaging, physics experts said.
Quantum ghost imaging can achieve unprecedented sensitivity by detecting not just the extremely small amount of light straying off a dim target, but also its interactions with other light in the surrounding environment to obtain more information than traditional methods.
A satellite equipped with the new quantum sensor would be able to identify and track targets that are currently invisible from space, such as stealth bombers taking off at night, according to researchers.
The U.S. Air Force and NASA have also researched this technology.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:11PM (10 children)
back around 2009 or so, a Chinese sub crept into the middle of a US carrier group, approached a vessel within torpedo range, ascended to periscope depth than snapped a Pulitzer Prize-winning closeup shot of that vessel as well as other ships farther away.
It then descended, crept back to China then blasted that picture all over the entire planet's news websites. I remember it very clearly.
A couple years later I gleefully wrote about that photo in Solving the Software Problem [warplife.com]. When I was done writing I googled for the photo.
Google yielded no joy.
I made extensive searches only to go away empty handed.
To me, it was just like a Soviet Communist falling out of favor with Stalin.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday November 29 2017, @12:31AM (4 children)
I didn't read your whole warplife piece, but I searched the page for some relevant keywords ("sub", "periscope", "china", "chinese") and none of them were in the text.
After some googling, I think you might be conflating two or more events. It seems like Chinese subs have snuck up on US carriers in 2006 and 2015, but I didn't read anything about a photo from a periscope being released. There was a Soviet sub that took a photo of a US carrier in 1974. That photo is available. More likely, you're combining memories of the 2006 Chinese sub with memories of a Canadian sub, Corner Brook, which took a photo of a US carrier from a periscope during a training exercise in 2007. That photo was released by the Canadian government, and I'm seeing people claim that this is it. [quotulatiousness.ca]
Sorry to doubt your memory, but it is made out of water.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday November 29 2017, @01:47AM (2 children)
And I'm dead certain it was a Chinese sub. The Communist Party was quite proud to describe its underwater force projection efforts to the press.
I don't have all of Solving the Software Problem online. I lost the original domain because I was in an insane asylum. It's now hosted at warplane.com but I haven't uploaded all the chapters yet.
Most of the chapters that are on the new site retain the original site's web design template. I've been slowly working towards redesigning them so they use warplane.com's - damn Autocorrect! - template. There's also lots of invalid HTML.
I wrote quite a lot more than is presently available online. There's also some chapters that are online but aren't linked from anywhere.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday November 29 2017, @02:36AM (1 child)
From The Washington Free Beacon: [freebeacon.com]
The Free Beacon could be lying, the unnamed defense officials could be lying or mistaken, the ~2009 incident you remember (which four people have now independently failed to google) could have been further away than the 2006 and 2015 incidents, or the 2006 incident could be the one with the periscope photo and the government could have successfully scrubbed it from the interwebz. Or, your memory could be wrong.
The more certain somebody is of a memory, the more certain I am that they aren't very good at recognising how flawed human memories are. The more time that has passed since an event, the less I trust my memories of it. In lieu of other evidence, this explanation should warrant serious consideration. Our gut feelings about the trustworthiness of a given memory should be discarded offhand, as false memories definitionally seem real. Modelling reality is hard. Much love, MDC.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday November 29 2017, @07:16AM
I don't clearly remember when I saw that photo. But I did see it at an online news site.
The wayback machine would have it but then I'd need to know the original URL of one of that articles that included the photo.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:58PM
and watch out for those super stealth fishing boats/freighters too.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday November 29 2017, @12:54AM (1 child)
This might be the incident your remembering only the Chinese sub did not take a picture of the US carrier, it just surfaced inside the carrier group and more embarrassingly for the USA, well inside torpedo range of the carrier. None of the advanced and expensive sub detection tech that was supposed to be protecting the carrier so much as twitched at the subs presence.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/chinese-submarine-appeared-in-the-middle-of-a-carrier-battle-group.html [warhistoryonline.com]
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday November 29 2017, @01:49AM
The position of the camera was obviously quite close to the water.
Also the photo had fiduciary marks in it. Fiduciary marks are only used when it's important to make a measurement of what you're looking at. That's one of the differences between a gun sight and a spotting telescope.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by Sabriel on Wednesday November 29 2017, @12:57AM (2 children)
As far as I can determine the incident happened in October 2006, and none of the many articles I've found even mention such a photo.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/chinese-submarine-appeared-in-the-middle-of-a-carrier-battle-group.html [warhistoryonline.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday November 29 2017, @01:50AM (1 child)
The US Navy was unaware that the Chinese sub had been there until the photo showed up in the evening newspaper.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:40AM
If you know the approx date and it was in the newspaper (presumably you know _which_ newspaper) then it, or the redacted pages, should be findable by searching newspaper archives. A lot of these are now digital but timeframe for switchover may be after the date you want.
So the bad thing is, you may need to go fishing in microfilms in the library, good thing is the men in black may not have done that (yet... but now we have this thread...)