Particle, Particle in Space, Tell Me About Earthquakes

August 30, 2008 by russianscience

The crew of the International space station finishes preparations for “Vsplesk” (“Burst”) experiment, results of which are expected to help in developing methods for real-time forecasting of earthquakes.

Russian members of the ISS crew have already installed hardware, necessary for the experiment, on the external surface of the “Zvezda” (“Star”) service module this July. Recently cosmonauts finished installation of scientific devices inside the station.

During the “Vsplesk” experiment researchers will find out how effective detection of charged particle bursts in near-Earth space environment is. Said bursts are believed to be related to various geophysical processes, taking place on our planet, including seismic events. One of the most important tasks of the experiments is distinguishing earthquake precursors from particles, having other physical nature. Russian scientists built research hardware and installed it on the ISS (“Vsplesk”) and on the “Resurs DK” space vehicle (“Arina”), launched in July 2006. Thus, particle detection is performed from different sites of near-Earth space, which makes received data more reliable and gives accurate view of the processes of interest.

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