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General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: RD on 23/11/2011 16:34:37

Title: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: RD on 23/11/2011 16:34:37
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F&hash=3cd4f4119996b42d10f5ed9eb0e8d712) [ Invalid Attachment ]  (https://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.458148,93.393145&hl=en&ll=40.458018,93.392587&spn=0.0208,0.040426&sll=40.475028,90.849724&sspn=0.087881,0.161705&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=15)

http://gizmodo.com/5859081/why-is-china-building-these-gigantic-structures-in-the-middle-of-the-desert


If it's not a replica of a road network (of where ?), my money is on an artwork by Ai Weiwei (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%27Sunflower_Seeds%27_by_Ai_Weiwei,_Tate_Modern_Turbine_Hall.jpg)  [:)]
Title: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: grizelda on 23/11/2011 21:25:44
Maybe it's an intergalactic bar code.
Title: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: Don_1 on 24/11/2011 01:44:06
Maybe it's an intergalactic bar code.

Nah..... Its Milton Keynes.
Title: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: RD on 24/11/2011 02:01:26
... Its Milton Keynes.

It can't be MK: where are the roundabouts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes_grid_road_system) ?.  [:)]
Title: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: Don_1 on 24/11/2011 02:33:22
... Its Milton Keynes.

It can't be MK: where are the roundabouts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes_grid_road_system) ?.  [:)]

Fiendishly clever and inscrutable, these Chinese. They've taken them to Bejing to copy them and sell 1000's on eBay.
Title: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: Silver on 24/11/2011 15:28:44
A good explanation:

Quote
But it now seems likely that the structures are used to calibrate China's spy satellites, according to Natalie Wolchover of website Life's Little Mysteries.

She spoke to Jonathon Hill, a research technician at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, which operates many of the cameras used in Nasa's Mars missions - who said the symbols are near-identical to US targets used to calibrate Corona spy satellites in the Sixties.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2062456/Gobi-Desert-Google-Map-mystery-explained-Objects-likely-spy-satellite-targets.html
Title: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: RD on 24/11/2011 19:40:57
A good explanation:

Quote
But it now seems likely that the structures are used to calibrate China's spy satellites, according to Natalie Wolchover of website Life's Little Mysteries.

She spoke to Jonathon Hill, a research technician at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, which operates many of the cameras used in Nasa's Mars missions - who said the symbols are near-identical to US targets used to calibrate Corona spy satellites in the Sixties.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2062456/Gobi-Desert-Google-Map-mystery-explained-Objects-likely-spy-satellite-targets.html


If it's just a reference why not use an existing ~1000m rectangular structure, (e.g. attached),
rather than go to the effort building a giant target in the middle of nowhere ?

 [ Invalid Attachment ]
Title: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: CliffordK on 25/11/2011 04:35:00
If it is designed for drone, bomb, and missile attacks...  perhaps the Chinese would choose not to calibrate it to Beijing.

Title: Re: Do you recognise this pattern ?
Post by: MikeS on 28/12/2011 10:18:30
I think it's a meaningless composite image.  It's marginally interesting to view it in negative.
One image (the mountain range and river for example) appears to be overlaid with a semi transparent second image the grid, (which kinda looks like the lead work [in negative] of a leaded light window]).