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https://thedebrief.org/darpa-is-using-earths-atmosphere-as-a-sensor-to-detect-secret-explosions-and-spacecraft-reentries/

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has revealed Earth’s atmosphere can serve as a powerful sensor, allowing the detection and modeling of events on the ground and in space with incredible precision. Launched in 2020, DARPA’s AtmoSense program began with a straightforward goal: understanding the dynamics of energy propagation between Earth’s surface and the ionosphere, and whether they could be leveraged as a sensor system.

“High-resolution surface-to-space simulation of acoustic waves was considered impossible before the program began, but we accomplished it,” said Nayak in a recent statement. With the development of models that cover six orders of magnitude in scale, Nayak and his team say they were able to demonstrate how energy begins with small disturbances on the ground, eventually propagating through the atmosphere. Such events remain detectable up to thousands of kilometers away from their point of origin.

“We used to call the ionosphere the ‘ignorosphere,’ but AtmoSense made some key interdisciplinary breakthroughs to address what used to be a massively intractable problem,” Nayak said.

Additionally, the open-source tools developed by the program are now allowing researchers to model complex behaviors exhibited by atmospheric energy waves in 3D. This capability could allow for the detection of illicit underground explosions produced during secretive weapons testing, or other covert activities from afar—using nothing more than atmospheric signals.

AtmoSense first focused on modeling large Earth-based events like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Then, beginning last year, the second phase of the program involved field testing carried out in New Mexico, where a series of controlled detonations were undertaken that included eight 1-ton blasts and a pair of 10-ton blasts.