Duga

Duga ( - darkometer rating : 7 - ) UPDATE March 2022: due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, this place, is currently inaccessible for regular tourists. -------------------------------- A gigantic Cold-War -era early-warning radio installation located right in the middle of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone . The structure is so bizarre they couldn't have made it up better for a James Bond film or a Sci-Fi flick. But it is genuine … and derelict. A fantastic add-on to tours of the Zone, especially for those into urban exploration and crazily oversized Cold War relics! > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: This monster of vintage technology was a so-called over-the-horizon (OTH) radar installation that formed part of the Soviet Union 's Cold-War -era early-warning network supposed to detect launches of ICBM s from the USA . It was developed because anti-ballistic-missile systems relying on regular line-of-sight detection could only have reacted too late. This was at a time before satellite systems could take over this task more neatly and accurately, of course. The OTH technology utilizes the refraction effect of the ionosphere, the part of the Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere ca. 40 miles (60 km) above ground. That way these radar systems could reach (depending on their size and power) hundreds or even thousands of miles beyond the simple line-of-sight limit normally imposed through the Earth's curvature. Don't ask me for the exact technical details of how such a system really worked (ask a radio physicist instead), but one thing is clear: it required a hell of a lot of electric energy.