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Re:A large asteroid recently flew close to Earth by CydeWeys on Monday January 09, 2017 @06:32PM (#13360962)
Active radar is subject to n^4 (!!!) drop-off with distance and as such is not useful for astronomical observation of any sort. Only passive detection is useful, which has a much more manageable dropoff of n^2. And asteroids don't emit radio waves, but they do reflect the Sun's light.
Re:A large asteroid recently flew close to Earth by snrplfth on Monday January 09, 2017 @07:45PM (#13361504)
I think they're talking about the Goldstone Array: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldstone_Solar_System_Radar

It's used for high-res imaging of asteroids that pass close by.

Re:A large asteroid recently flew close to Earth by CydeWeys on Monday January 09, 2017 @10:35PM (#13362347)
Interesting, though it appears to be useful for imaging, not so much detection.