Pristupačnost
The first phase of the "Light-Pollution Characterization Module" project was successfully completed in December 2023. The FER-ZKIST team handed over the module to the European Space Agency, which commended the project and recommended its continuation.
Do you know how night-time light alters life on Earth? To what extent is the increasing light pollution harming insects, animals, humans, and plants? Night-time light obscures the night sky, disrupts natural biological rhythms, affects health, leads to energy waste, hinders enjoyment of the night sky, and complicates astronomical observations. Studies indicate that artificial light illuminating the Earth has been increasing at an annual rate of 10% over the past 12 years.
Recognizing the need to monitor various types of nighttime illumination and the scarcity of satellites providing nighttime images of Earth, the European Space Agency (ESA) approved the "Light-Pollution Characterization Module" (LPC) project in 2022, led by a team of scientists from the Department of Communication and Space Technologies (ZKIST) at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER).
The ZKIST team, led by Professor Dubravko Babic, PhD, Assistant Professors Josip Lončar, PhD, and Josip Vuković, PhD, and PhD candidate Jakov Tutavac, proposed a simple and original solution for collecting data from low Earth orbit.
The members of the FER-ZKIST team worked for 14 months to develop the design and provide proof of concept for the LPC module with eight spectral segments and a single-pixel spatial resolution using an original inverse algorithm.
Full article is available on LinkedIn.