Connecting the Digital and the Ecological Transitions

iSPEX is an innovative way to measure tiny particles in the atmosphere, or atmospheric aerosols, that contribute to air pollution and its impacts on our health and environment in an as-yet poorly understood way.

They add to heart and respiratory disease, in the shape of volcanic ash they are of danger to air traffic, and they form one of the largest uncertainties in our current estimates of climate change.

The idea is simple. Click an add-on onto your iPhone to turn it into a scientific instrument, an optical sensor that is suited for the measurement of the macro- and microphysical properties of atmospheric aerosols.

iSPEX is developed building upon the measurement principles of its big brother, Spectropolarimeter for Planetary EXploration (SPEX), a highly sophisticated instrument built for the observation of other planets and their atmospheres. In comparison to SPEX, of which there exist only a few in the world, iSPEX is simple and designed to be available and used by thousands of people, and it is primarily meant for the measurement of aerosols in our Earth atmosphere.