The most comprehensive ionospheric map ever created using millions of mobile phones

Data from millions of mobile phones helped create the most complete map of the ionosphere, part of Earth’s upper atmosphere, ever created. This could help us understand the disturbances caused by geomagnetic storms, and perhaps even improve GPS.

“Smartphone-based measurements cover twice as much ionosphere as traditional scientific monitoring stations,” he says. brian williams At Google Research. “It’s like every city with a phone has a scientific monitoring station.”

Williams and…