Space & Astronomy

There could be a nuke in orbit right now and we wouldn't be able to tell

By T.K. Randall
July 11, 2026

Image: Earth and Universe
Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) The idea that a nuke could be launched from an orbiting satellite is quite terrifying, which is why the 1967 Outer Space Treaty explicitly bans the placement of such weapons in space.

But if someone broke the rules and actually did put one there, how would we know about it ?

As it turns out, there is currently no reliable way to detect a nuclear weapon in orbit, meaning that there could be one or more of them up there right now and nobody would be any the wiser.

To solve this problem, Areg Danagoulian - an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - has put forward an idea for a new satellite-based sensor system that could be used to detect radioactive material in other satellites.It would do this by looking for the telltale neutrons produced when the nuclear weapon passes through the Van Allen belt - a region of energetic charged particles situated high above the Earth.

Danagoulian's solution does have its limitations - it would need to move alongside a suspect satellite, meaning that you would have to have identified a possible candidate satellite first.

It can't just scan Earth's orbit for all satellites with suspicious signatures.

That said, it's a step in the right direction.

With any luck, however, there aren't actually any nuclear weapons up there to find.

Source: Gizmodo

Tags: Nuclear