How can data from outer space be used to impact human health?
NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) mission will study how different types of airborne particles affect human health over the short term, long term and during pregnancy.
“This is the first time NASA has ‘baked’ societal benefits and public health applications into a mission’s DNA,” says Yang Liu, associate professor in Emory's Department of Environmental Health.
An expert on air pollution, Liu helms an Emory team that is part of an international consortium of scientists and health organizations designing and implementing the scientific objectives of the $100 million MAIA mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2022.
Under Liu's leadership, Emory's team secured $2.1 million of the research budget to create algorithms that will convert MAIA’s satellite imagery from low-Earth orbit into maps of air pollution composition and concentrations over a dozen global megacities, including the Atlanta-Birmingham-Huntsville complex. The maps will distinguish between such pollutants as sulfate particles from power plant emissions, nitrates from traffic emissions and organic carbon from a few different sources including fossil fuel combustion and wildfires.
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