DARPA Tried Using the Earth's Atmosphere as a Giant Sensor and Detected Something Interesting

While trying to determine if it could use the entire Earth's atmosphere as a massive sensor, the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made a highly unusual detection. The agency — which has overseen the development of cutting-edge military technologies and out-there concepts for decades — encountered the distant signature of a SpaceX Falcon 9 reentering the atmosphere during a test in New Mexico last year. The goal of DARPA's AtmoSense program, which kicked off in late 2020, is to determine whether acoustic and electromagnetic waves propagating through the Earth's atmosphere could allow the US military to detect and locate major events and disturbances, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, across the planet. The idea is to eventually hone in on the location of illicit underground explosions or "other national security-relevant events" — highly relevant data for the US military. And according to a recent DARPA statement, the program works surprising ... Read full article.