A team of scientists from National Central University yesterday unveiled what they said was the world’s most compact and precise advanced ionospheric probe (AIP), which is to be installed on FORMOSAT-5 — the nation’s first independently developed optical remote-sensing satellite — and deployed for weather and earthquake forecasting.
The device, nicknamed the “Cosmic Cube” by the researchers for its ability to measure “enormous cosmic powers,” is just 10cm3 in size and weighs 4kg — 0.6kg lighter than the ion velocity meter developed in the US and 10kg lighter than its predecessor, project leader Chao Chi-kuang (趙吉光) said.
The reduced weight in the satellite’s payload lowers the cost for the space mission by about NT$30 million (US$957,700), equivalent to the subsidy provided by the National Applied Research Laboratories to build the device, Chao said.
The probe can take 8,192 samples of positive cations — ions with positive electrical charges — per second when operating at full capacity, compared with 160 samples per second for the European Space Agency’s DEMETER spacecraft, Chao said.
One of the instrument’s most prominent features is its unibody sieve, which is made of pure gold to achieve optimal potential energy structure while sifting out ions suitable for measurements, Chao said. This increases the accuracy of measurements while greatly reducing the pollution produced by electrodes compared with sieves made of stainless steel.
As ions travel at 800km per second in the ionosphere, the AIP’s high sampling rate shortens the intervals between samples, thereby enabling more accurate measurements of the ion density, velocity and temperature, while circumventing potential damage space weather could have on satellites and communication systems used on fishing boats and military vessels.
It can also be deployed for forecasting earthquakes, which are known to be preceded by a phenomenon involving fluctuations in ion concentration levels 24 hours to 10 days before they hit an area.
Citing samples conducted in the waters off Yilan County on March 31, 2002 — two days before a magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit Taiwan — National Space Organization chief scientist Liu Jann-yeng (劉正彥) said that ion density in the ionosphere above Yilan dropped to abnormal levels, which in turn caused plasma density in the ionosphere to fall as well.
“The time at which anomalies in ion density preceding earthquakes are detected varies from one place to another. For example, those detected from Taiwan range from one to five days and are characterized by sudden drops. Detections from China range from one to six days, while detections from Japan take the form of a positive anomaly and usually take place one to three days before an earthquake,” Liu said.
Chao said he started research on the probe about 20 years ago, when he was still a junior in college.
To pass down the legacy of Taiwan’s aeronautics education, he said the university has teamed up with the Taoyuan Government and National Applied Research Laboratories to offer courses on general aeronautics to all 11 municipal high schools in the city.
Outstanding students will be given an opportunity to visit satellite launch sites in the US, with all fees covered by the municipal government, he said.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
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