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Posted by: PLUT0NIUM 235
for me its not the 'thermal signature' that people talk about that would give its location away. still don't understand why we all think a space-craft would have an 'enormous' thermal signature, the question of how it go there is what beggars belief, since an in-atmosphere jump would give away its location without a shadow of a doubt.
another thing I think the sheer scale and mass of the super-carrier would give its location away regardless of whether it is 'cloaked' or not, not to mention the amount of energy required to cloak something more than fifteen miles long! in orbit of the Earth right now there is a satellite called G.O.C.E which monitors gravitational field strength of the planet. rather sure G.O.C.E could detect a cloaked super-carrier hovering above our planet, fast forward five hundred years and I would assume more sophisticated gravitational mapping had been developed, the ships have a lot of mass, which affects local gravitational field strength making it almost impossible to hide!
can I ask what gives one the impression that a ship would emit huge amounts of thermal energy? keep in mind that these things need substantial radiation shielding and such to protect crews against stellar radiation and the likes. don't think a 'large' thermal signature would be present just small amount against more or less absolute zero.
Correct, I don't see how Covenant are capable to cloak their ship during Slipspace event and exit out without getting detected. Slipspace ruptures emits lots of Chernobyl radiation (I believe it's what it called, not sure.) which it would flare up in UNSC relay/warning stations.
Thermal signature can be given off, no matter how technologically advanced as cloaking, it still gives off heat signature. (heat is same thing with thermal). For instance, Spartans are capable to seeing cloaked elites, thanks to their enhanced thermal visor in their MJOLNIR helmets. Supercarrier is like 27k long, it would require large size of reactors for this super carrier's functionality and electric wiring can give off heat as it is used to channel the energy from reactor to electronics, whatever.
And you're correct on part where it describes satellites are capable to reading gravitational field strength, and supercarrier's sheer size and mass, would distort the gravitational field strength thus alarming UNSC.
Like JesseH described about UNSC had stations to detect any long-range slip-space ruptures. In first place, they would have detected sneak team immediately. So, let me ask you question to all guys here, how did Covenant manage to slip by undetected even with slipspace ruptures, gravitational field distortion caused by massive size of super carrier, etc? Remember, Covenant are imitative. They don't resort to some kind of scientific method on the technology like Humans do.
[Edited on 06.26.2011 2:24 PM PDT]