Jakarta (ANTARA) – The US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched a special device into space to study dust particles and their potential for the world’s climate.
The device, called Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), was launched using the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday (14/7) local time.
Citing The Verge, Saturday, NASA is interested in investigating more deeply about dust because these particles have great power in Earth’s atmosphere because they can play a dual role either as a cause of cold or heat.
“EMIT was created to study mineral dust because it is currently an unknown element,” said EMIT principal investigator Robert Green.
One of the reasons why dust needs to be studied in depth is because it appears that dust particles come in a variety of colors.
For example, red dust has the potential to contain iron, then dust containing clay usually has a brighter color.
The lighter dust particles are thought to reflect sunlight, helping to cool the planet.
From the opposite spectrum, dark dust particles will actually absorb solar energy and have a warming effect.
With climate change already heating things up to dangerous levels for life on Earth, scientists really want to know if dust is helping or interfering with efforts to stabilize global temperatures.
Therefore the researchers present EMIT so that dust particles can be studied in greater depth to depict a wider image from above the Earth.
EMIT will submit more than one billion measurement samples over the next year taking the composition of dust around the world.
It is hoped that this will help researchers measure the spectrum of light reflected by dust from the Earth’s surface.
Thus the number of dark dust particles or light dust particles can be seen in terms of their portion on Earth.
“We want to send [EMIT] because of the gaps in our knowledge, it is related to the climate now and in the future, and it will allow us to have better information to adapt to climate change,” said Robert.
Beyond climate change, the EMIT data will also be used to study other phenomena on Earth that are affected by dust.
Take, for example, the fact that dust can travel thousands of miles from North Africa to the Amazon rainforest, where it provides nutrients for plants.
Dust also plays a role in cloud formation, air quality, and even water availability.
The International Space Station’s (ISS) orbit around planet Earth is ideal for dust measurements because it revolves around some of the most arid regions on Earth, namely deserts.
EMIT is scheduled to arrive at the ISS this Saturday (16/7) and is targeted to start sending samples to researchers at the end of July 2022.
Also read: NASA to launch rocket from Northern Australia for scientific study
Also read: SpaceX to launch crew of astronauts to International Space Station for NASA
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