Scientists find new way of spotting invisible ‘plasma bubbles’ lurking in Earth’s upper atmosphere

Scientists have developed a way of spotting “equatorial plasma bubbles” using a machine learning program that detects changes in airglow shimmering over Earth. Scientists in China have developed a new way of spotting massive, invisible “plasma bubbles” lurking in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The natural disturbances can disrupt GPS software and interfere with radio signals, but are incredibly hard to track. The bubbles, known as equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs), are found in the ionosphere — the region of the atmosphere over 30 miles (50 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, where most of the gas has been ionized, or stripped of electrons, by…