EMIT delivers first-of-a-kind maps of minerals in Earth’s dust-source areas, enabling scientists to model the fine particles’ role in climate change and more.
EMIT delivers first-of-a-kind maps of minerals in Earth’s dust-source areas, enabling scientists to model the fine particles’ role in climate change and more.
NASA’s EMIT mission has created the first comprehensive maps of the world’s mineral dust-source regions, providing precise locations of 10 key minerals based on how they reflect and absorb light. When winds loft these substances into the air, they either cool or warm the atmosphere and Earth’s surface, depending on their composition. Understanding their abundance around the globe will help researchers predict future climate impacts.
Launched to the International Space Station in 2022, EMIT – short for Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation – is an imaging spectrometer developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The mission fills a crucial need among climate scientists for more detailed information on surface mineral composition.
Surveying Earth’s surface from about 250 miles (410 kilometers) above, EMIT scans broad areas that would be impossible for a geologist on the ground or instruments carried by aircraft to survey, yet it does this while achieving effectively the same level of detail.
Read more at NASA
Photo Credit: grebmot via Pixabay
