Engineers turn smartphones into tools for exploring and studying space

Engineers are repurposing smartphones into innovative tools for exploring and researching space, showcasing their potential for advanced scientific studies.

The smartphone in your pocket could serve as a powerful tool for exploring outer space. Researchers from Google and CU Boulder have leveraged millions of Android phones worldwide to create a fleet of scientific instruments, producing one of the most detailed maps of Earth’s upper atmosphere.

The findings, published on Nov. 13 in Nature, may significantly enhance the accuracy of GPS technology. Brian Williams of Google Research and Jade Morton, a professor at CU Boulder, spearheaded this groundbreaking study.

"These phones are small enough to fit in your palm," Morton explained. "Yet, through crowdsourcing, they can revolutionize how we study the space environment."

The researchers utilized the GPS sensors in smartphones to monitor how Earth’s atmosphere distorts signals from satellites. Their work revealed intricate atmospheric phenomena, including high-altitude “plasma bubbles,” in unprecedented detail.

The team publicly released the data, offering insights into atmospheric dynamics over an eight-month period. “Collaboration drives scientific progress,” said Lizzie Dorfman, product lead for Science AI at Google Research. “Dr. Morton’s expertise was instrumental in this collaborative project.”

Exploring the Ionosphere

The study focused on the ionosphere, a dynamic atmospheric layer more than 350 miles above Earth. This region, bombarded by solar rays, is a chaotic mix of charged particles known as plasma, constantly changing throughout the day.

“At 2 p.m., solar activity increases the number of charged particles,” Morton said. “At night, when the sun is on the opposite side of Earth, those particles diminish.”

Such fluctuations can disrupt GPS technology, which relies on satellites sending radio waves to Earth. Phones determine locations by timing how long signals take to reach them, but the ionosphere’s variability can skew these measurements, causing location errors of several feet or more.

To correct for these shifts, scientists currently map only 14% of the ionosphere at any given time using ground-based radar systems. Morton emphasized the need for greater accuracy in applications like aircraft landings, where precision is critical.

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Source: Techxplore‍