cthia wrote:Passive parallel detectors can't operate in series to increase their detection range.
What do you mean by operating in series? That just evokes the image of one detector behind the other, staring at the butt of the one ahead of it...
Anyway, parallel detectors can still detect stuff. All of them observing the same, wide expanse of space. Yes, they can't see what isn't there, but the argument is that there is something there, even if it is below the threshold of detection of any one of them.
For each of them, the detection is indistinguishable from noise. But all of them, added up together, present a detection above the threshold, distinguishable from noise. That's because noise, by its nature, averages out, but the detection won't.
The nature of the detection I don't know. We're ruling out detection from the leaky reactor, fine. How about the thermal signature? How about reflection of sunlight? How about disturbance of the solar wind it is passing through? How about occlusion of background objects?
I said that unless it is as inert as a rock, it will have betraying emissions. We were discussing reactor, but this applies to thermal as well. And even rocks have thermal profiles. If you couple the thermal footprint of the object with the other potential detections, it might be possible to say it is not a rock. Though pretending to be a rock is not a good idea either, since every rock in the inner system is known.
I'm not saying that Manticore has this detection capability. I'm simply saying it's theoretically possible.