Researchers turned data from roughly 1,200 Starlink satellites into a giant scanner for Earth’s upper atmosphere, mapping a hard-to-observe region around 500 kilometres above the planet
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Representative Image (AI-generated)A network of Starlink satellites designed primarily for internet connectivity is giving scientists a new way to study one of the hardest-to-observe regions of Earth’s atmosphere.
According to a study by researchers at Kyoto University, publicly available orbital data from roughly 1,200 Starlink satellites were used to estimate the density of the thermosphere at an altitude of about 482 kilometres.
By analysing slight orbital changes caused by atmospheric drag and applying a mathematical technique called tomography, the researchers produced a two-dimensional m
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Representative Image (AI-generated)A network of Starlink satellites designed primarily for internet connectivity is giving scientists a new way to study one of the hardest-to-observe regions of Earth’s atmosphere.
According to a study by researchers at Kyoto University, publicly available orbital data from roughly 1,200 Starlink satellites were used to estimate the density of the thermosphere at an altitude of about 482 kilometres.
By analysing slight orbital changes caused by atmospheric drag and applying a mathematical technique called tomography, the researchers produced a two-dimensional m