26 Aug 2016
A seminar was held in Beijing on 24 and 25 August on the Italian-Chinese CSES mission to investigate earthquakes
For the last 10 years Italy and China, both countries with a high risk of earthquakes, have been developing a satellite project to try and understand if there are observable phenomena associated with earthquakes that can be seen from the privileged position of space. China is planning to launch theCSES mission in July/August 2017, and Italy will be taking part with the LIMADOU project, involving the Italian Space Agency, the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), theNational Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), theIAPS centre of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) and several Italian universities.
In fact, previous space missions have observed variations in the ionosphere in terms of electromagnetic fields and particles during seismic events, probably due to the emission of extremely low-frequency electromagnetic waves by the Earth's crust. However, the data is not yet very accurate and there aren't enough statistical observations to create a precise analytical model of the links between the ionosphere and seismic events.
Italian Space Agency President Roberto Battiston commented that “We must remember that the project is a phase of study that aims to evaluate the possibility of getting data from space, as well as from Earth-based seismographs, during a seismic event. So far the data is not accurate or sufficient to create a precise analytical model of the links between the ionosphere and seismic events, and this is the aim of the mission. But it will be a long time yet, not to mention that, as is often the case in scientific research, there are numerous incognitos. Even if we get clear evidence of signals anticipating an earthquake, we will need to evaluate the margin of precision and the time period available”.
Mr Battiston continued: “Those who have the institutional power to order the population to evacuate need to be able to count on an almost absolute level of certainty about what's going to happen. Another very important factor to take into consideration is whether any advance signal is enough to provide a reliable warning. These are all things that need to be accurately verified by rigorous scientific method.”
The Italian part of the project is entirely funded by the Italian Space Agency and the INFN, both for the satellite part, instruments and data analysis. A second launch is scheduled for 2019-2020. The time needed for the evaluations is impossible to define in advance, as it unfortunately depends on the number of earthquakes that take place on Earth, in particular in the areas monitored - mainly in the two partner countries of Italy and China.