Sensor
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
The term sensor, also referred to aboard starships as subspace sensors, is used to refer to any device which is used to scan, record, or otherwise observe any aspect of an environment surrounding a starship, space station, or person. This could be as simple a device as a manual camera or light sensor, or as complicated as the myriad devices designed to scan many aspects of the matter and energies of subspace, space, time and stellar bodies that make up all of existence.
There are two basic types of sensor arrays employed: passive and active. A passive scan is less obtrusive than an active scan, and may not be detected by the subject being sensed. Also, sensors may be divided into short and long range types. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
- The exact dividing point between short- and long-range sensors has not been clearly established on screen. Long-range sensors have picked up information about targets that were on occasion several hours travel time distant from the sensing ship. Short-range sensors seem to be restricted to a range consistent with the immediate environment of the sensing ship (the term "immediate" being relative), and are most often mentioned being used to scan the surface of planets from orbit or to target weapons fire.
There are many ways to mask a sensor scan, sensor screens are the most commonly used. (TOS: "The Mark of Gideon") One can also mask a sensor scan with certain materials, or radiation. (TNG: "Who Watches The Watchers", "The Pegasus") But to truly hide from a sensor scan one would actually have to change one's molecular structure. (TOS: "Obsession")
Sensors were used by the Vahklas, a Vulcan civilian transport ship, which had left the planet Vulcan in approximately 2143. When Subcommander T'Pol was studying the Arachnid Nebula aboard the Vahklas in 2151, she was temporarily unable to scan the Arachnid Nebula's disodium layer, due to the fact that the transport ship's lateral sensors were out of alignment. (ENT: "Fusion")
The Earth Starfleet vessel Enterprise was equipped with a lateral sensor array. When Captain Jonathan Archer and Commander Charles Tucker III were inspecting the new prototype NX class ship in an orbital inspection pod during 2151, one of the components that Captain Archer wanted to view was the lateral sensor array. (ENT: "Broken Bow")
In early 2368, when investigating the Phoenix Cluster, the lateral sensors of the USS Enterprise-D were booked solid for planetary observation.(TNG: "The Game")
In 2370, the Romulan warbird Terix performed a sensor scan of Asteroid gamma 601 in the Devolin system with its lateral sensor array in hope to locate the USS Pegasus. (TNG: "The Pegasus")
Galaxy-class starships were equipped with high-resolution, multi-spectro sensors. (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint")
[edit] See also
[edit] Types of scans
- antiproton beam
- autonomic response analysis
- geological scan
- high-resolution scan
- internal scan
- long range sensor scan
- magneton scan
- navigational scan
- multiphasic scan
- subspace differential pulse
- Inverse tachyon pulse
- virtual positron imaging scan
