science<\/p>\n
There is a long-standing international treaty in place but we can’t be the only ones side-eyeing world’s current crop of politicos\u00a0<\/p>\n
One scientist has produced a detailed model which proposes a way to verify that no government or rogue actors are secretly hiding nuclear weapons in the Earth\u2019s orbit. <\/p>\n
Currently, international laws prevent the use of nuclear weapons in orbit, but it also presents a problem. <\/p>\n
International space law was created by the Outer Space Treaty<\/a>, which was drafted in 1966 and has been ratified by 117 nations, including the USA, China, and Russia, since then. It explicitly bans nuclear weapons from being used in space, which is reassuring, because a nuclear explosion launched from an orbiting object could destroy most of the satellites in low Earth orbit, creating havoc with vital satellite communications, imaging and weather forecasting, to say the least. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ‘Slow AI’ needed to stop autonomous weapons making humans worse<\/p>\n \n It’s you, hi, you’re the problem, it’s you\n<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Angela Di Fulvio, associate professor in nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois, said: \u201cThe power of such a treaty to deter space-based nuclear detonations, which could sabotage key satellite-reliant infrastructure, is limited if compliance with the treaty cannot be readily verified.\u201d<\/p>\n To attempt to crack this problem, Areg Danagoulian, associate professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, modelled the interaction between high-energy sub-atomic particles in the Earth\u2019s magnetic field and disclosed the details in a paper published<\/a> in Nature this week. <\/p>\n Di Fulvio explained that the study modelled nuclear weapons at 2,000 km altitude where the Earth\u2019s magnetic field traps electrons with energies in the megaelectronvolt (MeV) range and protons up to gigaelectronvolt (GeV). <\/p>\n \u201cWhen GeV protons interact with heavy nuclei, such as those of uranium and plutonium, which are the most common fissile materials in nuclear weapons, they can induce a process called nuclear spallation. This produces secondary radiation that can include neutrons, charged particles and gamma rays,\u201d Di Fulvio said in an accompanying article. <\/p>\n