A Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher has calculated the number of false alarms in international monitoring stations that can be attributed to meteors.
Free data from a global array of microphones could spot nuclear false alarms, averting disastrous retaliation, say scientists and defence experts. The ground-based network will detect the faint, low-frequency rumbles of meteor explosions high in the atmosphere that can look like nuclear explosions to other sensors.
The Pentagon has revealed that not only is their early warning sensor network capable of distinguishing between meteor impacts and nuclear explosions but that meteor impacts occur more often than previously thought, almost once a month on average.
The U.S. Department of Energy has setup a sophisticated global sensor network that is able to detect both nuclear explosions and meteor impacts. The technology was designed to help monitor and enforce compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Exploding meteors bombarding the Earth from space could be mistaken for nuclear bomb tests, say seismologists of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. This could present problems for monitoring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which aims to halt the testing of all nuclear weapons.