TAG: GS 3: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
THE CONTEXT: Recently, a satellite developed by a coalition of companies and organisations, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
EXPLANATION:
Tanager-1 satellite
- The satellite can detect major emitters of carbon dioxide and methane.
- The launch has come just months after MethaneSAT, a satellite which tracks and measures methane emissions, was launched in March.
- The satellite will use imaging spectrometer technology developed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory to track methane and carbon dioxide emissions.
- It will do so by measuring hundreds of wavelengths of light that are reflected by Earth’s surface.
- Different compounds in the planet’s atmosphere including methane and carbon dioxide absorb different wavelengths of light, leaving spectral “fingerprints” that the imaging spectrometer can identify.
- These infrared fingerprints can enable researchers to pinpoint and quantify strong greenhouse gas emissions, potentially accelerating mitigation efforts.
- Tanager-1 will be able to measure point-source emission, down to the level of individual facilities and equipment, on a global scale, the report said.
- It will scan 130,000 square kilometres of Earth’s surface per day.
- Scientists will analyse data from Tanager-1 to identify gas plumes with the unique spectral signatures of methane and carbon dioxide and pinpoint their sources.
- Plume data will be publicly available online.
Why do researchers want to track methane emissions?
- Methane is an invisible but strong greenhouse gas, and the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, responsible for 30 per cent of global heating since the Industrial Revolution.
- According to the United Nations Environment Programme, over a period of 20 years, methane is 80 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide.
- The gas also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone, a colourless and highly irritating gas that forms just above the Earth’s surface.
- According to a 2022 report, exposure to ground-level ozone could be contributing to one million premature deaths every year.
- Therefore, it is crucial to cut methane emissions.
- The main culprit is fossil fuel operations, which account for about 40 per cent of all human-caused methane emissions.