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Massive networks of stripes appear in Chinese Desert--visible from space
- adolph 15y agoI remember seeing window screens in a similar pattern in China. For an example, see http://www.chinesefurniture.co.uk/symbols.html http://www.chinesefurniture.co.uk/symbols.html or http://ww.pacific-home.com/shop/dining/dining-chairs/cracked-ice-chair http://ww.pacific-home.com/shop/dining/dining-chairs/cracked...
- civilian 15y agoDoes anyone have the lat/long for http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/china-weird-4.jpg http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/china-we... ?
- dirtyaura 15y agoLink http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.458148,93.393145 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.458148,93.393145
- w33ble 15y agoAre those air fields to the northeast? They have the same kind of coloring as the evaporation ponds, but the look like runways to me. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.49081,93.510867&spn=0.003015,0.004227&t=h&z=18&vpsrc=6 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.49081,93.510867&... looks interesting as well. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.45374,93.743119&spn=0.024132,0.033817&t=h&z=15&vpsrc=6 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.45374,93.743119&... another similar looking grid further east.
- gcb 15y agodang! no street view available
- ahi 15y agoThe third image, the circular one, is just a solar array, right?
- regularfry 15y agoDoubt it. It's not uniform, there's no central tower, and retired jets would be a damn weird solar array component. My money would be on a radar or blast test site that's been abandoned.
- buss 15y agoThere's what looks like a pretty tall tower just to the south of that circle. http://g.co/maps/ct7qm http://g.co/maps/ct7qm
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ChuckMcM 15y agoGenerally large structures like this are related to mining as that is a process that can take large swaths of land and convert it into a few hundred thousand tons of the 'good stuff.' That being said, the old MX silos could be seen from space but they were pretty clearly revetments and launchers connected by rail lines. Generally large infrastructure often gives away its intent which is why modern despots prefer building everything underground.
- andrewfelix 15y agoOne of the comments suggest it was the result of lithium mining..."These sites clearly represent the process of lithium mining and extraction. Sedimentation trenches are dug to extract lithium iron phosphate to create batteries." Sounds reasonable. The other ones looks like bombing sites.
- listrophy 15y agoSomeone needs to write a pattern matching algorithm to compare the voronoi-looking image to the street layout of various cities. Seems like it would be a 1:1 representation, given the size. Dunno what that would indicate, but the results may be interesting...
- tibbon 15y agoChina's own Burning Man to scale for China's population?
- natesm 15y agoThis structure[1] is so large that you can see it when you zoom out to view all of China. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.42761,90.793762&spn=0.369021,0.485458&sll=40.45863,93.313301&sspn=0.00689,0.012692&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=11 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.42761,90.793762&...
- kooshball 15y agohttp://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=51039 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=51039
- antimora 15y agoThis should be on top. It explains what this area is and its scale.
- politician 15y agoSpecifically, the area is a collection of evaporation ponds for the production of potash, an excellent fertilizer.
- libria 15y agoThey've got a pool table out in the middle of the Gobi? I'm feeling a little underprivileged. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.469935,90.856934&spn=0.000522,0.264015&sll=40.45863,93.313301&sspn=0.00689,0.012692&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=12&layer=c&cbll=40.469935,90.856934&cbp=12,0,,0,0&photoid=po-33077580 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.469935,90.856934...
- jcampbell1 15y agoLooks like a salt evaporation pond to me. like: http://g.co/maps/8d83k http://g.co/maps/8d83k or a little closer to home: http://g.co/maps/tr7w5 http://g.co/maps/tr7w5
- JMill 15y agoTry switching to "Map" view (vs. "Satellite" view) -- the whole region around that huge facility was a big lake. Did they suck it dry? http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.42761,90.793762&spn=0.369021,0.485458&sll=40.45863,93.313301&sspn=0.00689,0.012692&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=11 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.42761,90.793762&...
- ryandvm 15y agoI think China needs to get their Roomba fixed.
- hmottestad 15y agoThat is quite funny. A nice upbeat tone to the rest of the comments :)
- GigabyteCoin 15y ago> Are these some sort of alignment or targeting grids for space weapons or what? Obviously. I like his thinking.
- astrodust 15y agoIt's like a QR code for the planet.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ck2 15y agoUnderground nuclear testing facility that collapsed? Maybe it's their version of NORAD underground?
- hugh3 15y agoNORAD is built into a mountain for a good reason. China has plenty of mountains, so if they have a NORAD I assume it's under one of those.
- carbocation 15y agoMy understanding is that NORAD can withstand megaton hits so long as they are > 1 mile away. With modern technology, it seems unlikely that NORAD would be missed by a full mile.
- jacquesm 15y agoSanta would be most upset.
- johngalt 15y agoIt makes the amount of sky you have to protect from inbound RVs much smaller. A smaller cone for your anti-missile interceptors.
- carbocation 15y ago@johngalt: Great counterpoint. @jacquesm: Maybe Santa is more Stallman-esque than we give him credit; perhaps he doesn't enjoy being tracked?
- 46Bit 15y agoAnyone know a good place to get old satellite imagery? Be interesting to see if you can see the construction process.
- geogra4 15y agoA massive Keynesian Stimulus program, no?
- trentonstrong 15y agoThe image displayed in the article looks reminiscent of a Voronoi diagram. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram
- trentonstrong 15y agoAnd from that Wikipedia article, it appears they have some applications in mining. Maybe that's related to the salt mining comments above?
- hugh3 15y agoVoronoi Polygons have been used in mining to estimate the reserves of valuable materials, minerals or other resources. Exploratory drillholes are used as the set of points in the Voronoi polygons Interesting idea, but I don't see why they'd then construct a huge set of roads to connect every vertex. Or why they'd drill that many drillholes in less than a square km.
- trentonstrong 15y agoAgreed. I think I just wanted it to be cooler than it was :)
- xemoka 15y agoCheck out this [1] post on the google earth forums from 2006. Has some more interesting ideas on what it could be, and potentially an answer for part of it. It also has a great KML (kmz) of the different features. From [1]: "This Site was a Chinese missile test centre, and a lot of area is developed for tourists attraction. but some facility such as the fake runways are still under military control. "1950s, this site was chose by Soviet scientists as the first Chinese nuclear weapon test site, but the Chinese authority refused this suggestion due to its small scale and location. and just used it as missile test facility." Although, I'm not sure on the factuality of this statement, however has a link to a people.com.cn file about the area. [1] http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=466030 http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&N...
- cheap 15y agoThis place is ripe for bots that speak Bocce.
- eddieplan9 15y agoFound another one not far to the east of the "window" pattern: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.455046,93.741875 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.455046,93.741875 Could this just be a glitch in image processing? Otherwise, there are quite a bit of things going on around this area.
- andrewcooke 15y agothe original gizmodo article has more info - http://gizmodo.com/5859081/why-is-china-building-these-gigantic-structures-in-the-middle-of-the-desert http://gizmodo.com/5859081/why-is-china-building-these-gigan...
- damncabbage 15y agoThat last picture is extremely weird. (A 1:20 scale model of the border between India and China? It's too small to train on directly, and it's too large to see all at once for higher-level planning.)
- stephth 15y agoFor political/military strategists to take an morning stroll on? See if any bright ideas pop up? It's eerie.
- nieve 15y agoIt seems like it might be a a good low-tech way (and possibly even with modern battlefield GIS available) to thoroughly familiarize mid-level and lower officers with the terrain. It's hard to overestimate the value of a good, physical sense of the land in a places that remarkably rugged. It won't replace local info on the ground, but I'd certainly rather go into a place like that with commanding officers who aren't trying to reconstruct chunks of the Himalayas in their head on the fly. If you've got the spare manpower, the space, and you're planning ahead... why not?
- apaprocki 15y agoThe very-large antenna looking road-thingy they link to is explained here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?s=fd66faf505dcd60e57850524a6390c2f&p=2056860&postcount=18 http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?s=fd66faf505dcd60e57...
- galgon 15y agoThese represent the layouts of streets in Washington,DC and lower Manhattan. They are testing their low cost, nuclear tipped, artificial intelligence controlled cruise missiles on simulated targets.
- martinkallstrom 15y agoI like the "visible from space" superlative. In this day and age when you can see a guy on a bike from space.
- colanderman 15y agoWhenever anybody uses that phrase I can't help but think of David Attenborough. In "Planet Earth", there were at least a dozen things which "are so large, they are visible from space."
- inuhj 15y agoThis is tangential but Attenborough's narration of Planet Earth was awful. He contradicted himself with his superlatives every other episode.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- markkum 15y agoHaving done business in China and knowing a little bit how some of the good people there think; my bet is that the square pattern(s) which looks like Voronoi diagram are just a Chinese version of the Crop circles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_circle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_circle. They like to do things in major scale in China. Couple of the pictures were clearly geology/mining related and one is a military training area. No biggies.
- ggoodale 15y agoFound this[1] as well while poking about - fairly tall structure, unique curved shape, nothing but a road, some outbuildings and some antenna masts for miles in any direction. Thoughts on what it might be? [1]http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.509945,93.236595&spn=0.002549,0.005397&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=18 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.509945,93.236595...
- prawn 15y agoNo obvious parking, otherwise could be employee accommodation of some sort. Hard to tell how narrow those spines are. I'm guessing four storeys tall?
- alexhawket 15y agoIf you take the road south from there, there's a giant round bunker like building http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.425258,93.25&spn=0.002356,0.004801&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=18 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.425258,93.25&...
- jojopotato 15y agoIf you keep following that it looks like the blurry road thing crosses a river and ends in another round bunker.
- finin 15y agoThey may be trying to communicate with a starman waiting in the sky, who'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds.
- Element_ 15y agoAccording to the thread on reddit people have posted about these on the internet up to 5 years ago. The most plausible explanation on the thread seems to be that the criss-cross pattern is a test range for autonomous cruise missiles, designed to mimic city streets. Here is a quote from the thread: "It is an optical test range for autonomous cruise missile targeting systems, to simulate the street grids of cities. If you check the scale of the grid on google earth (+40° 27' 6.89", +93° 44' 20.77") you'll notice that the grid is the size of several city blocks. If you look here (40.479272,93.47713) they have a fake airport painted out over ditches, creeks and inclines. There is also a paved runway short way away, with random bomb craters in it. The round circle with the 3 jets in the middle is a blasting test range, used to test the dispersion, and effectiveness of explosions over a varying ranges." [1] [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/mbth1/china_google_earth_spots_huge_unidentified/ http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/mbth1/china_googl...
- bitops 15y agoI will come out and admit that when I read "network of stripes" I was thinking "oh, a story about RAID". This is interesting too, though. Most likely it is a military installation similar to what exists in the US.