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EMIT delivers first-of-a-kind maps of minerals in Earth\u2019s dust-source areas, enabling scientists to model the fine particles\u2019 role in climate change and more.<\/em><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s EMIT mission has created the first comprehensive maps of the world\u2019s 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\u2019s surface, depending on their composition. Understanding their abundance around the globe will help researchers predict future climate impacts.<\/p>\n Launched to the International Space Station in 2022, EMIT \u2013 short for Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation \u2013 is an imaging spectrometer developed by NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The mission fills a crucial need among climate scientists for more detailed information on surface mineral composition.<\/p>\n Surveying Earth\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n To date, the mission has captured more than 55,000 \u201cscenes\u201d \u2013 50-by-50-mile (80-by-80-kilometer) images of the surface \u2013 in its study area, which includes arid regions within a 6,900-mile-wide (11,000-kilometer-wide) belt around Earth\u2019s mid-section. Taken together, the scenes comprise billions of measurements \u2013 more than enough to create detailed maps of surface composition.<\/p>\n The mission has also demonstrated a range of additional capabilities in its 17 months in orbit, including detecting plumes of methane and carbon dioxide being emitted by landfills, oil facilities, and other infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cWherever we need chemistry to understand something on the surface, we can do that with imaging spectroscopy,\u201d said Roger Clark, an EMIT science team member and senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. \u201cNow, with EMIT, we\u2019re going to see the big picture, and that\u2019s certainly going to open some eyes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Scientists have long known that airborne mineral dust affects the climate. They know that darker, iron oxide-rich substances absorb the Sun\u2019s energy and warm the surrounding air, while non-iron-based, brighter substances reflect light and heat, cooling the air. Whether those effects have a net warming or cooling impact, however, has remained uncertain.<\/p>\n Researchers have an idea of how dust travels through the atmosphere, but the missing piece has been the composition \u2013 the color, essentially \u2013 of the surface in the places dust typically originates, which until now was derived from fewer than 5,000 sample sites around the world. Based on billions of samples, EMIT\u2019s maps offer much more detail.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll take the new maps and put them into our climate models,\u201d said Natalie Mahowald, EMIT\u2019s deputy principal investigator and an Earth system scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. \u201cAnd from that, we\u2019ll know what fraction of aerosols are absorbing heat versus reflecting to a much greater extent than we have known in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond harnessing EMIT\u2019s mineral data to improve Earth climate modeling, scientists can use the information to study dust\u2019s impact on the ecosystems where it lands. There\u2019s strong evidence that particles settling in the ocean can spur phytoplankton blooms, which can have implications for aquatic ecosystems and the planet\u2019s carbon cycle. Scientists also have shown that dust originating in the Andes of South America, as well as in parts of northern and sub-Saharan Africa, provides nutrients for rainforest growth in the Amazon basin.<\/p>\n EMIT data can enable researchers to pinpoint the sources of mineral dust and get a more detailed look at its composition, helping estimate the travel of key elements such as phosphorus, calcium, and potassium, which are thought to factor into this long-distance fertilization.<\/p>\n \u201cEMIT could help us to build more intricate and finely resolved dust-transport models to track the movement of those nutrients across long distances,\u201d said Eric Slessarev, a soil researcher at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. \u201cThat will help us to better understand the chemistry of soils in places very far from the dust-generating regions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Aside from tracking 10 key minerals that are part of its primary mission, EMIT data is being used to identify a range of other minerals, types of vegetation, snow and ice, and even human-produced substances at or near Earth\u2019s surface. And with vastly more measurements at their disposal, researchers will be able to find statistical relationships between surface characteristics and other features of interest.<\/p>\n For example, they might spot signals in EMIT data that correspond with the presence of rare-earth elements and lithium-bearing minerals, said Robert Green, a senior research scientist at JPL and EMIT\u2019s principal investigator. This new information could be used to look for those substances in previously unknown places.<\/p>\n \u201cTo this point we simply haven\u2019t known the distribution of surface minerals over huge swaths of the planet,\u201d said Phil Brodrick, a JPL data scientist who spearheaded the creation of the mineral maps. With the EMIT data, \u201cthere will likely be a new generation of science that comes out that we don\u2019t know about yet, and that\u2019s a really cool thing.\u201d<\/p>\n EMIT was selected from the Earth Venture Instrument-4 solicitation under the Earth Science Division of NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate and was developed at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California. The instrument\u2019s data is available at the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center for use by other researchers and the public.<\/p>\n To learn more about the mission, visit:<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Andrew Wang \/ Jane J. Lee 2023-180<\/p>\n<\/div>\nDust and Climate<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Dust and Ecosystems<\/strong><\/h3>\n
A New Generation of Science<\/strong><\/h3>\n
More About the Mission<\/strong><\/h3>\n
News Media Contacts<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 \/ 818-354-0307
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov \/ jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov<\/p>\n