Wireless devices such as our cellphones and laptops have become indispensable members of our essential kits. Since its advent, these gadgets have helped us a lot in accomplishing and automating some of our daily tasks.
But do you know that as more and more people use this technology, it created what scientists call an “electronic fog”? This so called ‘fog’ interfere with scientific observations and routine tasks of finding and locating outer space radio emissions.
This electronic fog disrupts and/or disturbs passive monitoring systems vital to agriculture, transportation and national defense. These passive instruments listen and capture faint radio emissions from water, soil and atmospheric gases, as well as emissions related to atmospheric changes in temperature and humidity necessary for human and animal existence.
In response to this problem, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) called for ‘new rules and technologies that could strike a balance between active and passive users of the electromagnetic spectrum‘. There were many proposed solutions handed in, but the real solution will only take effect if these million cellphone users will agree to coexist with continued scientific discovery.