China reveals space weather radar it claims represents a breakthrough

China says it has created its own radar technology to help it forecast space weather, and claimed it made breakthroughs along the way. According to state-sponsored media the space weather forecast and warning system's first batch of results was released in Beijing on Monday during an international workshop of the Super Dual …

[Anonymous Coward]

Get out your space suits because today’s space forecast calls for a cold vacuum with high levels of radiations and low atmosphere.

[Spherical Cow]

*singing* It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere...

[Kevin O'Rourke]

Overenthusiastic PR?

It sounds like they've just built several fairly standard SuperDARN radars, to join the ones that other countries have been running since the late 80s. From the pictures it looks like they're using a different type of antenna compared to the older radars. That's probably good because the original antenna towers are a maintenance nightmare, especially if you're in a location with strong winds or a couple of metres of snow accumulation per year.

Maybe they're doing something exciting with the electronics or they just think they've made an important discovery in upper atmospheric physics?

[Pascal Monett]

Re: Overenthusiastic PR?

Is it really impossible for Chinese scientists to have made a breakthrough ? No.

To be fair, given the number of high-profile scientific breakthroughs announced by China that have proven to be nothing but damp squib, there is a good chance that this be another one but still, they just might have made a genuine discovery.

Or this is just another round of playground "mine is bigger than yours" politics.

Time will tell.

[Paul Kinsler]

Re: Overenthusiastic PR?

I'm not sure that "building a radar" in itself counts as a high-profile scientific breakthrough, although the radar itself may well enable scientific breakthroughs.

[imanidiot]

Re: Overenthusiastic PR?

"From the pictures it looks like they're using a different type of antenna compared to the older radars"

Given how crucial antenna design is to radar sensitivity and resolution, "a different type of antenna" could be a major breakthrough.

Or it could be Chinese chest puffing. Time will tell probably.

[Anonymous Coward]

As with everything the CCP says....

This is not about space weather at all, its about the ability to detect low observable aircraft. As described this system would be excellent at detecting stealth, but of course they won't sat that so they come up with this BS to cover its real use and capabilities. They are really concerned about the upcoming B-21 Raider, and other stealth systems such as the Korean KF-21 Boramae. So the games goes on, measure vs counter measure, which started when the first man used a shield to deflect a thrown rock and will continue as long as there are humans as war is our nature.