Latest news with #stealth
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
China claims its new stealth tech could evade US' proposed Golden Dome missile defense
Scientists in China have debuted a new material that could evade the proposed US missile defense system announced by President Donald Trump, dubbed the Golden Dome. Designed to evade both infrared and microwave detection, the material could be well-suited for use on high-speed aircraft and missiles. Developed by a team led by Professor Li Qiang at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, the high-performance stealth material is capable of operating across multiple detection ranges—including short-wave, mid-wave, and long-wave infrared, as well as microwaves—even at temperatures reaching 1,292 degrees Fahrenheit or 700 degree Celsius. With detection technologies becoming increasingly advanced, stealth materials have adapted to provide multispectral protection, masking objects across wavelengths from visible light to microwaves. However, many key military systems function in high-temperature environments, testing the limits of these coatings. High temperatures on military platforms often arise from external forces like aerodynamic heating or internal sources such as engine exhaust producing intense infrared radiation. Traditional stealth materials can struggle under these conditions as elevated heat may compromise their effectiveness or even lead to structural damage. This has created an urgent demand for materials that combine multispectral stealth with robust thermal resistance. This is where the new stealth material comes in offering a viable recourse. To test the material's stealth ability, the team compared it to a blackbody, which absorbs electromagnetic radiation. When heated to 1,292°F, the material's radiation temperature was about 790°F to 510°F lower than the blackbody's, the South China Morning Post writes. The material showed a significant reduction in radiation intensity, with levels 63.6% lower than a blackbody in the mid-wave infrared (MWIR) band and 37.2% lower in the short-wave infrared (SWIR) band. Beyond its ability to avoid detection, the material also does a great job releasing heat. When heated to 700 degrees Celsius, it gave off heat much more effectively than typical metals. The substance's breakthrough design comes from a composite structure that combines multilayer films with a microwave metasurface. The top layer acts as a moisture barrier, while the bottom layer ensures strong adhesion to the surface beneath. Additionally, the multilayer film is carefully laser-etched to let microwaves pass through without affecting its infrared stealth capabilities. According to the research, the device reaches a maximum operating temperature and heat dissipation performance that exceeds current leading technologies for combined high-temperature infrared and microwave stealth. Just a few days ago, US President Donald Trump announced plans to develop the 'Golden Dome' missile defense system—the American counterpart to Israel's 'Iron Dome'—aiming to build it within the next few years. The system is intended to counter ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, and cruise missiles, and will reportedly include space-based tracking sensors. If infrared tracking proves to be the primary method for the Golden Dome system to detect and intercept hypersonic weapons, materials that offer combined infrared and microwave stealth—like the one developed by Li's team—could significantly reduce the chance of detection.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Still Seems Convinced That Stealth Jets Are Literally Invisible
As expected, President Donald Trump's commencement speech at West Point on Saturday was packed with characteristically unhinged tangents. From drag queens to trophy wives, the president's ramblings covered a wide range of bizarre topics in between shots at Russia, Biden, and Obama as he spoke to the graduating cadets. However, one avenue of free-associative speculation Trump meandered along while speaking about military investment seemed to confirm that one of his much-derided beliefs remains intact: the president seems to genuinely believe that so-called 'stealth' fighter jets—military aircraft designed to be difficult to detect by radar—are actually invisible. 'We are buying you new airplanes, brand new beautiful planes, redesigned planes, brand new planes, totally stealth planes,' Trump said, speaking to a proposed record increase in defense spending. 'I hope they're stealth. I don't know, that whole stealth thing, I'm sort of wondering. 'We shape a wing this way, they don't see it. But the other way they see it? I'm not so sure, but that's what they tell me!' This is familiar territory for Trump, who has made similar remarks since at least 2017. In October of that year, Trump concerned reporters when discussing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in Puerto Rico. 'Amazing job,' Trump said at the time. 'So amazing we are ordering hundreds of millions of dollars of new airplanes for the Air Force, especially the F-35. You like the F-35? ... You can't see it. You literally can't see it. It's hard to fight a plane you can't see.' 'That's an expensive plane you can't see.' At a Thanksgiving Day visit to a Coast Guard Station in Florida that same year, Trump doubled down on this seeming belief, saying he had asked 'some Air Force guys' whether flying an 'invisible' plane would look like what he had seen in films. 'I said, 'How good is this plane?' They said, 'Well, sir, you can't see it.' I said, yeah, but in a fight—you know, a fight, like I watch in the movies—they fight, they're fighting. How good is this? They say, 'Well, it wins every time because the enemy cannot see it. Even if it's right next to it, it can't see it.' I said, 'That helps. That's a good thing.'' Years of experience as Commander in Chief do not seem to have steered Trump toward the realization that such planes, which are shaped to either deflect or absorb incoming radar signals used to track movement, are meant to be difficult to detect. But can still be seen by the naked eye. In 2020, there was this remark: '[The F-35 is] the greatest fighter jet in the world, as you know, by far. Stealth. Totally stealth. You can't see it. Makes it very difficult. I was asking a pilot, 'What do you think is better: This one? This one? That one?' Talking about Russian planes, Chinese planes. He said, 'Well, the advantage we have is you can't see it.' So when we're fighting, they can't see us. I say, 'That sounds like a really big advantage to me.'' While Trump is no stranger to wild exaggerations and hyperbolic comparisons, the repeated factual inaccuracy over the invisibility capabilities of military aircraft continues to raise eyebrows. British journalist Mehdi Hassan, in picking up on the most recent 'invisible' planes comment, wrote that it was difficult to determine if such remarks are 'ignorance' or 'inanity.' 'His weirdness cannot be overstated,' Hassan concluded.
