NASA discovers “accidentally” dozens of methane emitting sites from Earth
A device placed by the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in orbit around the Earth has proven
Efficiency in an important function for Earth sciences, which is the discovery of the huge emissions of methane gas around the world, one of the most important gases that cause global warming, after it was designed primarily for the development of studies of airborne dust, and its effects on climate change.
Yesterday, NASA said that the device, called the Imaging Spectroradiometer, has identified more than 50 "super methane emitters" in Central Asia, the Middle East, and the southwest of the United States, since it was installed in July aboard the "Space Station". International.”
Super methane emitters, some of which have recently been detected, while others are already known, include large oil and gas facilities and large landfills.
The spectrophotometer was mainly built to determine the mineral composition of dust rising in the atmosphere from Earth's deserts and other arid regions, by measuring the wavelengths of light reflected from the surface of the soil in those regions.
The study, which is called “The Study of Mineral Dust of the Earth’s Surface”, will help scientists determine the validity of the possibility that airborne dust in different parts of the world absorbs the heat of the sun or leads to its distortion, which contributes to the increase in the temperature of the planet or its cooling, or not.
And it turns out that methane absorbs infrared light in a unique way, which the device can easily detect, according to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles, in which the device was designed and manufactured.
Source:websites