Gotta hopscotch this to this thread, I got thinking of this when I read about Iran not having a nuclear weapon and think mybe I can get an answer here.


I guess I’m taking the quick and dirty approach here by asking the glp’ers, but aren’t there satellites that can identify and track the movement of radioactive/nuclear material? I thought that each gives off a certain signature (isotopes) that can be identified and tracked. I would find it almost impossible to believe that we are have not identified and are currently tracking every one on the surface of the planet.
So if I surmise that we can and do track, in what cases would those satellites not be able to track?
2 possibilities come to mind (feel free to debunk):
1) Deep underground transport (but ground penetrating radar and ground sensor might pick this up.
2) Some sort of case that is completely sealed and will not let an object be detected (Lead comes to mind) But I’m sure the gov’t has something that for that, plus I don’t know if lead will work—it seems to me that lead would be too easy of a solution.
So with this in mind, I can’t help but feel that if there is a nuclear “Terror Attack” ANYWHERE in the world, the US will know when the device was in transit and by whom. (makes me think of the movie “Sum of all Fears”) except in that movie there were no satellites to “track” that material.