A software developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California (USA) has discovered that the earthquake of magnitude 7.9 on the Richter scale that surprised and devastated Nepal on 25 April created waves of energy that penetrated the Earth's upper atmosphere, disrupting the distribution of electrons in the ionosphere or thermosphere , the area of the Earth's atmosphere permanently ionized due to photoionization of solar radiation.
The disturbances were controlled by signals transmitted by the Global Positioning System (GPS) and received by a GPS receiver located in a region neighboring Nepal. Measurements of this region of the atmosphere that is located between 60 and 1,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface were filtered with this NASA processing software and showed the distribution – and disturbance – of the electrons in the ionosphere.
The data reveal that after the initial earthquake ruptured there was a period of about 21 minutes until the ionospheric disturbance caused by the earthquake reached a GPS station located some 640 kilometers away from the epicenter in Tibet (China).
Thanks to this type of information, scientists will be able to plan future warning systems in order to respond in advance to any natural hazard that is difficult to detect, such as a volcanic eruption or a tsunami.
