 |
 |
Submarines and Geoids
Name: John G.
Status: student
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
Would a large submarine, whilst travelling below the sea
surface, affect the Earth's geoid, enabling an extremely sensitive
satellite based gradiometer, to detect the anomaly caused by a
moving submarine, in comparison to a high-resolution reference map
of the geoid? The submarine would most probably be at neutral
buoyancy, with depth adjusted via its control surfaces. However,
whilst the overall structure of the submarine would be neutral in
buoyancy, there would be a large internal volume where the water
will be 100% displaced by air, and thus have almost nil mass in
comparison to the water surrounding it. Rune Floberghagen, Esa's
GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer
satellite) mission manager explained the sensitivity of GOCE as
follows: "Imagine a snowflake, which has a fraction of a gram,
slowly falling down on to the deck of a super tanker. The
acceleration that the super tanker experiences from that snowflake
is comparable to the sensitivity of our instrument"
Replies:
While not wish to sound "conspiratorial", military research funded by various
nations, by no means is the U.S.A. is lagging, is often years ahead of civilian
or commercial applications. The "stealth" bomber is just one example that could
be cited. Given the precision of "atomic" clocks and GPS systems, it would not be
very surprising if extremely small variations in gravitational and/or magnetic
disturbances could be monitored and tracked.
Vince Calder
Click here to return to the Physics Archives
| |
Update: June 2012
|
|
