The monstrous earthquake in Turkey could have been caused by a new type of weapon that is launched from orbit and "penetrates up to 5 km deep into the earth... a force that comes from outer space, and you don't have a chance to see it or defend yourself." This is a literal quote from the speech of not just anyone, but the head of the Turkish space agency. Is it really true?The head of the Turkish Space Agency (Turkiye Uzay Ajansi) Serdar Hussein Yildirim spoke about the existence of space weapons capable of causing earthquakes.
Due to the recent strong earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, this video has become extremely popular.
Pillars from outer space In a video that has gone viral, a Turkish official reports that some Warrior model satellites are operating in orbit, which can send ten-meter titanium alloy rods to anywhere on the planet.
These rods without additional engines, only due to kinetic energy, can penetrate five kilometers deep into the Earth, causing an earthquake of magnitude 7-8. [...]
The literal quote from the video sounds like this:
"Metal rods. There's nothing inside the rod, no explosives, nothing, but it's a metal rod made of solid titanium alloy material. They put them in a satellite. A certain amount. And then they aim and launch it to the Ground.
It's like a stake, a sharp tip. As soon as it falls to the ground, it penetrates up to 5 km deep into the earth. This happens very quickly and creates an earthquake of magnitude 7-8.
As a result of the strike, everything that is there will be destroyed... Such a force that comes from outer space, and you have no chance to see it, stop it, or defend yourself."
It certainly sounds really creepy. And most of all, the described weapon is similar to what was shown in the plot from the fantastic action movie "G.I. Joe: Cobra Throw 2" in 2013, made according to the Hasbro toy series. In the film, however, they do not talk about the possibility of a kinetic shock unit to penetrate five kilometers, but with the help of a rod, they epically destroy the center of London.
Maybe the Turkish official is right and such weapons really exist? What prevents you from making kinetic shock parts and dropping them from space?
Kinetic weaponsIn fact, the idea of creating such a weapon seems very simple and logical.
We drop an aerodynamically shaped object from space, it accelerates on its way to Earth and, due to kinetic energy, hits it when it collides with a target. The first cosmic velocity is 7910 meters per second, isn't that enough?
The problem is that the so-called aerodynamic heating and friction against the dense layers of the atmosphere come into play here. The air around our planet works as a kind of shield, burning and slowing down objects that could fall on the planet.
That is, an object falling to the Ground, in order to survive before colliding with the surface, must be solid, as dense as possible and large enough. From the experience of information from the orbit of space stations, we know that they break into pieces, burn up, and the debris that has reached the ground, falling, as a rule, does not cause much more destruction than when they are dropped from an airplane.
The situation with spaceships is similar. Individual objects, especially rounded tanks, are often found at the crash site of spacecraft or Progress cargo ships brought out of orbit. They easily slow down in the atmosphere and fall to the ground almost intact.
In addition, it is not at all clear what will cause these falling elements to penetrate so deep into the Earth? Back in the 1940s, the option of creating seismic bombs was considered, which were designed to fall from a great height, accelerate to supersonic speed and sink into the ground for 10-30 meters, detonating underground.
At the same time, powerful compression waves (the effect of an artificial earthquake) were created in the ground, which could destroy any structures. The apotheosis of such bombs was the 20-ton T-12 Cloudmaker, one of the heaviest aerial bombs in the history of mankind. Such a bomb, accelerated to supersonic speed, is capable of penetrating up to 20-30 meters of soil or three to eight meters of concrete structures, but no more.
Modern concrete-piercing bombs are smaller in size, but they also fail to penetrate deeper than 30-60 meters into the ground. There is no question of any kilometers. Moreover, models and experiments show that when an object hits the ground at a higher speed, an explosion occurs, while the object itself is not deeply buried.
In addition, when kinetic weapons are considered, for some reason they forget about ballistic missiles, which in fact are the very weapons that have been in space and are returning to Earth. And yes, the warheads of modern missiles have hypersonic speed with a maximum speed in the atmosphere of up to Mach 15. And still, when hitting a target, one kinetic warhead is not enough. An explosive or a nuclear charge works better than just a blank.
There are still issues of control and precise positioning of such weapons. Simply dropping a titanium pillar from space, it is impossible to aim it precisely at the target. This means that complications begin – the control system, thrusters, aiming system, communication system, which is extremely difficult to do because of the plasma cloud around our column passing through the dense layers of the atmosphere. As a result, we get the same (if not more expensive) combat unit as on a ballistic missile. In addition, all objects that are in orbit are clearly visible from Earth using tracking systems, so it is unlikely that it will be possible to drop the pillar unnoticed.
Yes, the warhead of a ballistic missile, even without a nuclear charge, can cause very serious damage when falling from space.
Here, for example, is a memo from the Kura test site dated June 3, 1958 about the first hit of the head of the R-7 rocket at the test site: "The diameter of the funnel is about 27 m, the depth is 4.5 m. Ejection of soil forward up to 1000 m, to the sides up to 350 m and back up to 200 m. " Impressive, of course. But it is very, very far from the total destruction of the whole of London, shown in the cinema, and the penetration of a five–kilometer thickness of the earth to cause an earthquake.
Myths and reality The speech of Serdar Hussein Yildirim was refuted by the Turkish Space Agency itself.
The words were called "taken out of context", and the speech from 2021 was not related to the recent earthquake. [...]
In Turkey and Syria, a tragedy occurred that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. One can understand the pain of the country's residents who lost their relatives and friends in the cataclysm. But there is simply no sense in spreading fictitious, unverified and frankly conspiratorial information. Humanity does not yet have the technology to create such large-scale earthquakes as occurred on February 6, 2023. Maybe, and thank God it doesn't.
Mikhail Kotov