A plan to turn the atmosphere into one, enormous sensor
It will watch for storms, earthquakes, volcanos—and missile launches
WHEN AN EARTHQUAKE rocked Nepal in 2015, geophysicists were surprised to find that they could see its reflection in the ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere beyond about 75km above Earth’s surface. Ground-based instruments saw changes in the density of free electrons in this electrically charged zone. These rippled outward from the point in the ionosphere directly above the earthquake’s epicentre.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Something’s in the air”
From the June 13th 2020 edition
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