Why is Russian radar blind?

The public is now asking why Russian powerful missile defense radar systems have not discovered the meteorite in this country on the morning of February 15.

Nearly 1,200 people were injured when the meteorite was about 15 meters in diameter, weighed approximately 10,000 tons through the Earth's atmosphere and exploded at a height of 19-24 km above the ground, causing a meteor shower on the sky of the Chelyabinks, Tyumen, Kyrgan, Sverdlovskà regions and many other localities along the Ural mountains.

After exploding, a meteorite falls on the city of Chelyabinks. (Photo: Siberian Times)

It is estimated that, when exploding above the Ural Mountains, the meteorite created momentum of about 500 kiloton, having destroyed 25 times the atomic bomb that had been dropped on Nagasaki (Japan) in 1945.

After the incident, Russian politicians called on world powers to urgently develop technology to identify meteors and asteroids that threaten our Earth.

However, given the fact that Russia owns one of the most advanced, high-tech early warning systems on Earth, many wonder why this nuclear superpower is unable to detect clues. upcoming illustrations.

Experts from the Russian Nuclear Forces Project - an organization with reliable information on the nuclear stockpiles as well as the Moscow government's intercontinental weapons system - tried to explain at Why are meteorites of relatively large sizes able to 'bypass' the surveillance system?

The Russian expert group has published a picture showing how far the space observation capabilities of the country's radar systems are. They claimed, despite the size of the object, the early warning radars 'never had a chance' to detect special meteorites because they were not designed to explore rocks that flew in from outside. space.

Google Earth's file shows the scanning ranges of early warning radars
of Russia.The straight blue line is said to be the meteor's moving path.

As seen in the photo as well as a file attached to capture from Google Earth, Russian radar systems ignored the curvature of the Earth and swept the fan-shaped areas extending through the planet's atmosphere. we.

Suppose the meteorite follows a straight trajectory when it collides with Russia, at an angle of about 15 degrees, a researcher wrote: "As you can see in the picture, the meteorite is outside the radar observation area. Pechora and below the horizon when viewed from Moscow, the radar Don-2N could not see it.

The Dnepr radar can detect meteorites if the direction is looking up but it did not do it. As an early warning radar, Dnieper's mission is to survey the narrow space just above the horizon, where a ballistic missile can pass if launched.

The radar is always on and there is no need to pay much attention to anything else. They are not supposed to constantly monitor the whole sky - an energy waste and reduce the scope of effective detection.

An early warning radar system could see objects at higher altitudes (up to 34.5 degrees as in the case of the Dnepr radar) and would do so if required to monitor a satellite. However, you will have to ask and because no one has noticed the meteorite is coming, no one will do it. "

The researcher added that the Google Earth file also shows the Krasnoyarsk radar scanning range, but that it has also allowed the 'net' meteorite .

So, according to the anonymous researcher, there is no error with Russia's missile defense and early warning system. The reason why meteors are not detected is simple: it is not an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The researcher concludes his article with a positive note about the safety of the world despite the number of nuclear weapons available in Russian and American stockpiles: 'It still poses a question of interest. taste. What if you see a 500 kiloton explosion on (or above) your land and don't know what it is and where it comes from? I guess we all know what Russians are going to do - they'll quickly upload their control camera videos to YouTube '.