The super hero vision that can "see" in the dark!
Have you ever yelled in a big empty room and heard your voice come back? That's called an echo!
Radar is like playing echo with radio waves!
1. Radar sends out a radio wave (like yelling "HELLO!")
2. The wave hits an object (like an airplane)
3. The wave bounces back (like an echo)
4. Radar hears the echo and says "AHA! Something is out there!"
Click "Scan" to send radio waves, then click "Add Plane" to see how radar finds airplanes!
It's all about timing!
Radio waves travel super fast - about 186,000 miles per SECOND (that's like going around the Earth 7.5 times in one second!)
If radar sends a wave and gets the echo back in 0.001 seconds, it can calculate:
🛫 Airports: Finding airplanes and guiding them to land safely
🚔 Police: Measuring how fast cars are going (don't speed!)
🌧️ Weather: Finding rain clouds and storms
🚗 Cars: Self-driving cars use radar to "see" other cars
🛡️ Military: Finding enemy airplanes and missiles
Here's a cool trick! Remember when an ambulance drives past you and the siren sounds higher-pitched as it comes closer, then lower as it drives away?
Radar uses the same idea!
When radio waves hit a moving car, the waves get "squished" if the car is coming toward the radar, and "stretched" if it's moving away. By measuring how much the waves changed, radar can calculate the speed!