From the first moment that the forces of the Israeli occupation state entered the Gaza Strip, one of their main goals was to discover and destroy the tunnels, which the Palestinian resistance considers an effective and indispensable weapon. These tunnels help the resistance soldiers move between battle sites away from the eyes of the drones that It fills the skies of Gaza, and it also provides an opportunity to carry out surprise attacks against the soldiers and vehicles of the occupying state.
After a major failure in the occupation’s attempts to uncover and destroy the tunnel network, press reports indicated that the occupation forces resorted to a technique that scientific research began in the 1950s, which is called muon photography, in which muons coming to the ground are used to create three-dimensional images of rock or concrete structures. Or dirt or other materials.
What is muon photography?
Muons are subatomic particles similar to electrons, but about 200 times more massive. These particles move at the speed of light and constantly bombard the Earth. Muons arise from the interaction of cosmic rays coming from space with the upper atmosphere, and when muons pass through matter, they are scattered in a way that can be monitored due to their interaction with the nuclei of atoms.
If the muons scatter quickly, this indicates that they encounter high-density materials (such as solid rocks that do not contain voids), but if they pass through an empty space such as a tunnel or cave, they do not scatter, and a larger number of these particles penetrate the material deeper. Scientists can monitor muons using specialized devices to determine the locations of voids.
This technology has already been used in more than one application. Between 2016 and 2017, a research team was able to discover a number of cavities inside the pyramids of Giza using muon imaging. Subsequent research showed that the ancient Egyptians likely built gaps in the pyramids to relieve pressure and keep them structurally sound.
In the United Kingdom, researchers conducted experiments using the same technology to photograph a railway tunnel. Short-term scans, in about 30 minutes, allowed them to identify a previously unknown void that represented a large burden on the tunnel structure, which they later repaired.
Every technology has limits
In general, this technology is used to inspect civil infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels to detect the integrity of concrete structures and examine voids in them, and it is considered one of the most accurate technologies in this scope. But despite its success in many experiments, this technology faces many drawbacks.
This comes in particular in the case of the Gaza tunnels, as they are required to be placed below the area to be examined to receive cosmic rays coming from space and then passing through the soil. This requires preliminary knowledge of the tunnels because it thus requires the soldiers of the occupation army to go down into a deep tunnel that already exists and study what is located above. From tunnels.
In addition, in this environment, everything is at risk, not only because resistance soldiers could turn such an operation into a disaster for the occupation soldiers, but also because muon detectors are sensitive to heat and humidity, data transmission is affected by Internet outages, and the resulting images can… They are less accurate in a variety of contexts depending on soil density, depth, and the nature of the voids themselves.
On the other hand, given that the muon flux is relatively low, obtaining a sufficient number of muons to create a clear and detailed image may take a long time, and this is especially true for dense and thick structures.
Until now, the tunnels remain a tool that is difficult to detect by the Israeli occupation state, even though it began using muon tomography years ago, and even after entering the Gaza Strip for eight months.
