Scientists are developing advanced quantum sensors for low-earth orbits that can detect the smallest tremors of Earth’s gravity.
These barely perceptible shifts – caused by moving water, Structural activity Or the Shift of the Rock – Provides clues about what lies beneath the planet’s surface.
New devices can allow mapping of underground functions such as aquifers and mineral deposits. Navigation, resource management, and National Securitythe developer says.
“Atoms were used to determine the Himalaya mass,” said Jason Haion, chief technist in Earth Sciences at NASA. Jet Propulsion Research Institute In Southern California, he is the director of JPL’s Quantum Space Innovation Center. Statement of April 15th.
Related: How quantum sensors in ISS will revolutionize space exploration
Quantum sensors such as the quantum gravity gradiometer pathfinder (QGGPF) instrument developed by JPL, private companies and academic institutions use clouds of atoms that fall free and cool to near absolute zero.
Once they fall, the laser acts like a mirror or splitter, separating the atoms and then backing them together. The way atoms interfere when they recombine reveals how accelerated by gravity, allowing scientists to measure the smallest changes in gravity with extreme accuracy.
Based on a technology called atomic interferometry, these cutting-edge tools are much more sensitive than traditional instruments, but still improve. Researchers are now improving technology to make them even more accurate and durable.
“With atoms, we can guarantee that all measurements are the same. They are not sensitive to environmental impacts,” said Sheng-Wey Chiow, an experimental physicist at JPL.
Because it uses atoms instead of bulky mechanical parts, the QGGPF sensor is surprisingly compact, weighing around 275 pounds (125 kilograms). This makes it much smaller and lighter than traditional space-based gravity equipment. This is a major advantage for space missions where size, weight and launch costs are severely limited.
NASA plans to give spatial testing to the new sensors near the end of the decade. The Technology Demonstration Mission will guide a range of cutting-edge tools into testing, pushing the limits of how light and atoms interact at a minimum scale.
“No one is trying to fly one of these instruments yet,” said Ben Stray, a postdoctoral researcher at JPL. “We need to skip it so we can see how well it works, which allows us to advance not only quantum gravitational gradiometers, but also quantum technology in general.”
