How does a radar signal bounce off of a distant object back to the exact spot that it was sent from?
In: Physics
You can imagine a flashlight at a distance in a dark room. Say there is a mirror across the room. You are going to see the flashlight in the mirror even if it isn’t pointed exactly right just because the beam spreads out. For an object that’s round rather than a mirror (disco ball?) It would be especially easy.
Another consideration for this is that a radar only has to look for a specific frequency coming back to it. If it is looking for stationary objects it’s the same frequency, but if it is looking for moving objects it’s slightly different. This makes it even easier to filter against frequencies you don’t want. Going back to the flashlight example, it would be equivalent to looking for a specific color of light coming back.
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