London, Nov 17 (ANI): After a Google Maps satellite spotted a series of mysterious structures located in Gobi Desert in China, the Internet has been buzzing with theories about what their purpose is, with the latest one suggesting that the structures are used to calibrate the nation's spy satellites.
There were speculations that the bizarre structure spotted on the borders of Gansu province and Xinjiang are area that the superpower uses to build military, space and nuclear equipment.
According to the Daily Mail, some internet users had been trying to overlay one of the strange structures, spotted on the borders of Gansu province and Xinjiang, on to various US city maps, worried that there may be a sinister military purpose behind them.
On zooming in, planes and burnt-out trucks can be seen on some of the photographs, which suggests that they may indeed be targets of some kind.
According to Natalie Wolchover of website Life's Little Mysteries, it turns out that the structures are most likely used to keep a check on China's spy satellites.
"The grids of zigzagging white lines seen in two of the images - the strangest of the various desert structures - are spy satellite calibration targets. Satellite cameras focus on the grids, which measure approximately 0.65 miles wide by 1.15 miles long, and use them to orient themselves in space," writes Wolchover.
Jonathon Hill, a research technician at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State, said the existence of these calibration targets may seem suspicious or revelatory, but it really isn't as China was already known to operate spy satellites, along with many other countries, including the US.
"An (American) example I found just now is a calibration target for the Corona spy satellites, built back in the 1960s, down in Casa Grande, Arizona," Hill said. (ANI)
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