Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

Probably not. The gravity of the star and planets pulls on nearby gas, piling it onto the larger masses.

If you want an intra-system gas cloud large enough to be a hiding place, consider a comet's tail.

I don't know if that would work, considering that ninety percent of the telescopes in the world are trained on comets because of their rarity and the spectacular views they offer. Seems like hiding behind the single most watched object in the solar system would be a bit of a foolish move.

For sake of argument, how long would it take to detect something like the ISS in the outer planets in Sol?

From Earth, in the outer planets? Umm... well, we have some very high-resolution telescopes to aim at them, but it's really small: just over 100 meters in length. The smallest moon ever discovered in the solar system is about 1 km in diameter. So, I guess it would depend on whether it reflects more light.

The probes that we have out there, actively exploring the Jovian moons, might see it.

The ISS gives out a lot of unnatural heat, so if any of the satellites scanning space gets a glint of its heat signature, they can home in and look closer.

It would also depend if there is something looking at the direction the ISS analogue is at.

I am not sure if the heat would mater that far out given we are still finding objects bigger then Pluto in the outer solar system.

If were still dredging up dwarf planets, I doubt a station would be found quicker.

Edited by Imca on May 2nd 2024 at 11:05:08 PM

Actually thats all the more reason we would find the ISS. plutoids are hard to find because they are very cold and the reflections are weak, so there's not much to actually see. the heat emitted by the ISS would make it easier to spot.

Actually there's an even easier way to find it: radio signals.

I have my doubts that the IR signature of the ISS would be visible from Earth if it was at Pluto's orbit - it is much weaker than that of a brown dwarf several lightyears away, and we are only just now dredging them up.

The angular resolution of a telescope in IR is smaller than that of the visual spectrum as well

If you really want to hide something small, put it on a high-inclination solar orbit so that it spends most of the time well outside the ecliptic.

Even if you have a direct line of sight to it, it's microscopic needle in a normal-sized haystack.

Edited by amitakartok on May 3rd 2024 at 12:27:51 PM

The point is that something ISS-sized would be extremely difficult to detect in the outer solar system. It would need to be emitting an unusual amount of radiation for us to pick it up.

Also, the ISS is basically the size of a football field from end to end.

A football field that's also floating in the almost infinite vastness that is space.

The odds of finding something like that from outside the solar system are astronomical at its most optimistic.

Unless we listen to the folks at Atomic Rocket who say if such an object ever so much as turns on a space heater (heh) or makes a quick phone call then it would become instantly detected on the other side of the galaxy and instantly tracked and identified.

Because detection methods according to them have no such thing as propagation delay or resolution issues or line of sight and other nonsense.

True, but if the object just lay there like a derelict dead in the water, then there's nothing to track and the odds of finding it drops rather rapidly.

And for why it would be "dead in the water", the object may have been just simply abandoned.

Edited by Trainbarrel on May 3rd 2024 at 4:10:59 PM

Let's be fair: if the International Space Station were somehow transported to Jupiter's orbit, it would be abandoned pretty fast.

I remember going through the whole issue of stealth in space on Atomic Rocket, if it gives off heat that is higher or different than the background radiation of space or different from a planetary body, then it is possible to detect within the solar system.

The issue is that if no one is looking for an ISS station in the system, it will eventually be found but it can take some time.

If you have entire networks of sensors or military vessels searching for targets and threats, then the issue isn't as much as finding the target, as much as how long it will take for them to find it. Mostly due to processing power needed to process giga to terra bytes worth of images and data to tell apart natural heat from artificial heat.

There are ways of trying to avoid detection, such as hiding behind a large body and knowing where the sensors are, but you'd be needing to actively change your orbit and know beforehand where the sensors are.

Also, the ISS has radiators and they are pretty large, because despite not having a reactor, it still needs life support, shed heat radiated on the hull and run the electronics inside the ISS.

Edited by AngelusNox on May 3rd 2024 at 12:32:28 PM

Bit of interesting news for the writers out there. Sci Fi continues to become reality.

AI plane participated in a mock dog fight with human onboard.

Cross-posted to the Sky High and Military Thread.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on May 3rd 2024 at 2:52:20 PM

We’re setting the stage for the plot of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing almost 30 years after that show first came out aren’t we?

Regarding the question about gas clouds, I must give the obligatory pedantic smartass answer: There are several known gas clouds within our own solar system, formed in the gravity wells of various planets, to include Earth. Also there's the sun, but a massive fusion furnace is not exactly what folks have in mind when they think of clouds.

So is there any plausible tech to make a Zero system?

x3 Nah... But we should be paging Isamu Alva Dyson and Guld Goa Bowman just to be safe.

How is one supposed to utilize a contained micro black hole as an energy source?

I mean, I know about Hawking radiation, but I doubt it's anywhere near potent enough to be useful.

Presumably using the micro black hole’s gravity in some way.

The problem with "using a micro black hole's gravity" is how. If it's rapidly rotating, you could extract angular momentum from it via the Penrose process, but an artificially created black hole might not have much if any spin.

Hawking radiation really is the way. The concept of the Kugelblitz involves using (really freakishly powerful) lasers to produce a tiny black hole that would be at the right mass to radiate very powerfully. This would in principle allow extraction of most of the energy that went into creating it. Such a black hole would last around 5 years and, according to the source I'm seeing, produce about 129 petawatts of power, enough to power an interstellar spacecraft... heck, practically an interstellar civilization.

Edited by Fighteer on May 8th 2024 at 5:50:54 AM