NASA, SpaceX launch a powerful new instrument to the ISS to study dust - The Verge

NASA and SpaceX launched an important new tool to the International Space Station that will study the power dust has to heat or cool our planet. The data it collects will improve our understanding of how climate change now and in the future.

A payload making its way to the International Space Station could help researchers back on Earth finally solve a climate mystery that’s stymied scientists for years. NASA launched a key instrument for its climate research, called the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Thursday night from the Kennedy Space Center.

Dust is a surprisingly powerful force up in the atmosphere, which is why NASA is determined to better understand it. The tiny particles waft up from deserts and other arid regions, and depending on many different factors, they can have a cooling or heating effect on our planet. Which scenario is actually playing out across the globe, however, continues to elude scientists.

“EMIT is studying mineral dust because it’s currently an unknown element,” Robert Green, EMIT’s principal investigator and Jet Propulsion Laboratory senior research scientist, said at a July 13th briefing on the mission. “Not just the magnitude of how much it heats or cools, but whether it heats or cools is uncertain.”

One reason why dust is such a mystery is that dust particles come in different colors. It might be dark red, for instance, because it contains iron. Dust particles containing clay, on the other hand, are usually much lighter in color.

Those lighter dust particles will reflect sunlight, helping to cool the planet. On the opposite end of the spectrum, dark dust particles will actually absorb the sun’s energy and have a heating effect instead. With climate change already heating things up to dangerous levels for life on Earth, scientists really want to know whether dust is helping or hurting efforts to stabilize global temperatures.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/15/23219999/nasa-spacex-iss-emit-instrument-dust-climate-research

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