Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Wednesday, March 27, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Teens measure Earth’s magnetic field from space

Portuguese high school students programmed small computers aboard the International Space Station to measure Earth’s magnetic field.

(CN) — Understanding Earth doesn’t always require expensive equipment.

A group of Portuguese high school students who were able to use a tiny, inexpensive computer to measure Earth’s magnetic field have proven space exploration can be done on a budget.

In an article published Monday in the American Journal of Physics, three high school students from Portugal and their faculty mentor report they programmed an add-on board for the Raspberry Pi computer — which runs about $100 — to take measurements of Earth’s magnetic field in orbit.

The add-on component, known as the Sense Hat, contained a magnetometer, gyroscope, accelerometer and sensors for temperature, pressure and humidity.

The research project was part of the Astro Pi Challenge held by the European Space Agency and U.K.’s Raspberry Pi Foundation, where students were required to program the credit card sized computers with code to run aboard the space station.

The students used data acquired from the space station to map out Earth’s magnetic field. They compared their results to data provided by the International Geomagnetic Reference Field, which uses measurements from observatories and satellites to compute Earth’s magnetic field.

The students compared their Raspberry Pi measurements to the latest IGRF data from 2020.

While the teens’ data differed from the IGRF data by a significant amount, it was fixed and could be due to a static magnetic field inside the space station.

When the students repeated their analysis using another 15 orbits worth of ISS data, they found a slight improvement in the results.

"I saw the Astro Pi challenge as an opportunity to broaden my knowledge and skill set, and it ended up introducing me to the complex but exciting reality of the practical world," Lourenço Faria, co-author and one of the students involved in the project, said.

The students were able to reconstruct the main features of Earth’s magnetic field with only three hours’ worth of measurements from their low-cost magnetometer aboard the space station, suggesting the project could be easily adapted to ground-based measurements using laboratory equipment or magnetometer apps on smartphones.

"Taking measurements around the globe and sharing data via the internet or social media would make for an interesting science project that could connect students in different countries," said Nuno Barros e Sá, co-author and faculty mentor for the students.

Follow @@BiancaDBruno
Categories / International, Science, Technology

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...