First Greenhouse Gas Plumes Detected With NASA-Designed Instrument

The imaging spectrometer aboard the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s Tanager-1 satellite identified methane and carbon dioxide plumes in the United States and internationally.

Using data from an instrument designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the nonprofit Carbon Mapper has released the first methane and carbon dioxide detections from the Tanager-1 satellite. The detections highlight methane plumes in Pakistan and Texas, as well as a carbon dioxide plume in South Africa.

The data contributes to Carbon Mapper’s goal to identify and measure greenhouse gas point-source emissions on a global scale and make that information accessible and actionable. 

Enabled by Carbon Mapper and built by Planet Labs PBC, Tanager-1 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Aug. 16 and has been collecting data to verify that its imaging spectrometer, which is based on technology developed at NASA JPL, is functioning properly. Both Planet Labs PBC and JPL are members of the philanthropically funded Carbon Mapper Coalition.

“The first greenhouse gas images from Tanager-1 are exciting and are a compelling sign of things to come,” said James Graf, director for Earth Science and Technology at JPL. “The satellite plays a crucial role in detecting and measuring methane and carbon dioxide emissions. The mission is a giant step forward in addressing greenhouse gas emissions.”

The data used to produce the Pakistan image was collected over the city of Karachi on Sept. 19 and shows a roughly 2.5-mile-long (4-kilometer-long) methane plume emanating from a landfill. Carbon Mapper’s preliminary estimate of the source emissions rate is more than 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilograms) of methane released per hour.

The image collected that same day over Kendal, South Africa, displays a nearly 2-mile-long (3-kilometer-long) carbon dioxide plume coming from a coal-fired power plant. Carbon Mapper’s preliminary estimate of the source emissions rate is roughly 1.3 million pounds (600,000 kilograms) of carbon dioxide per hour.

The Texas image, collected on Sept. 24, reveals a methane plume to the south of the city of Midland, in the Permian Basin, one of the largest oilfields in the world. Carbon Mapper’s preliminary estimate of the source emissions rate is nearly 900 pounds (400 kilograms) of methane per hour.

In the 1980s, JPL helped pioneer the development of imaging spectrometers with AVIRIS (Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer), and in 2022, NASA installed the imaging spectrometer EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation), developed at JPL, aboard the International Space Station.

A descendant of those instruments, the imaging spectrometer aboard Tanager-1 can measure hundreds of wavelengths of light reflected from Earth’s surface. Each chemical compound on the ground and in the atmosphere reflects and absorbs different combinations of wavelengths, which give it a “spectral fingerprint” that researchers can identify. Using this approach, Tanager-1 will help researchers detect and measure emissions down to the facility level.

Once in full operation, the spacecraft will scan about 116,000 square miles (300,000 square kilometers) of Earth’s surface per day. Methane and carbon dioxide measurements collected by Tanager-1 will be publicly available on the Carbon Mapper data portal.

More About Carbon Mapper

Carbon Mapper is a nonprofit organization focused on facilitating timely action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Its mission is to fill gaps in the emerging global ecosystem of methane and carbon dioxide monitoring systems by delivering data at facility scale that is precise, timely, and accessible to empower science-based decision making and action. The organization is leading the development of the Carbon Mapper constellation of satellites supported by a public-private partnership composed of Planet Labs PBC, JPL, the California Air Resources Board, Arizona State University, and RMI, with funding from High Tide Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, and other philanthropic donors.

News Media Contacts

Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov

2024-136

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Ring Around the Mountain

On June 10, 2023, the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 acquired this image of Mount Taranaki, a snow-capped mountain in New Zealand that is ringed by a dark green forest. Two older and extinct volcanoes, Kaitake and Pouakai, lie to the northwest of its peak.

Learn more about Mount Taranaki.

Image Credit: NASA/Wanmei Liang, USGS

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Monika Luabeya

Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder Workshop: A NASA Chief Technologist Sponsored Workshop

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Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder Workshop: A NASA Chief Technologist Sponsored Workshop

OVERVIEW

The NASA chief technologist’s team, within the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS), is hosting a Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder (LAMP) workshop on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, to provide a community forum to discuss modeling and simulation testbeds in this domain. The workshop is in coordination with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. 

With the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. Technologies like trusted autonomy are necessary to support these types of sustained operations. Trusted autonomy is a more robust level of autonomy designed for long-term operational use. 

The LAMP workshop will be held on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Black Fire Innovation Facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Black Fire Innovation Center Building is located at 8400 W. Sunset Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89113, approximately 20 minutes from the UNLV main campus. 

This workshop has been designed to coincide with the 2024 Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium fall meeting (also taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada).  

The OTPS solver-in-residence is the main organizer and facilitator for this workshop.

PROGRAM 

The LAMP workshop will provide a forum for a discussion on topics that include: 

• A modeling and simulation (M&S) pathfinder to explore an integrated sim environment for lunar stakeholders from commercial industry, other U.S. government agencies, international partners and academia, to simulate their systems that would eventually operate in the lunar environment and to test interoperability between systems.     
• How to leverage the planned rover missions to 1) calibrate and improve this M&S environment over time, and 2) potentially use them as autonomy testbeds to safely mature algorithms in a relevant environment. 

Please RSVP for in-person or virtual attendance by registering at the following site:
 https://nasaevents.webex.com/weblink/register/rdf4dd38bc3bf176dc32d147513f7b77c

*Please note registration is on an individual basis. If attending with multiple guests, each guest must register for the event separately. 

LAMP Workshop Agenda

(All times listed are in PST and subject to change)

CONTACT 

For questions, please email:

Dr. Adam Yingling
2024 OTPS Solver-in-Residence
Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) 
NASA Headquarters 
Email: adam.j.yingling@nasa.gov

The Solver-in-Residence (SiR) program is a one-year detail position with the chief technologist in NASA’s Office of Technology Policy and Strategy. The program enables a NASA civil servant to propose a one-year investigation on a specific technology challenge and then work to identify solutions to address those challenges.

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Bill Keeter

Kathryn Sullivan: The First American Woman to Walk in Space

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Kathryn Sullivan: The First American Woman to Walk in Space

Forty years ago, in October 1984, Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space. But being the first presented several challenges that started well before she took those historic steps. Things got complicated just after she learned of her assignment.

Questions of Physiology

Biomedical researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) raised what they believed was a serious issue with women walking in space and alerted George W.S. Abbey, the head of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate. Females, he learned, were more likely than their male counterparts to develop the bends in the low-pressure environment of the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), the spacesuit she would wear. To alleviate the possibility of developing decompression syndrome, all spacewalkers had to breathe pure oxygen before a spacewalk to eliminate nitrogen from their bloodstream. Researchers insisted Sullivan (and any future women spacewalkers) spend more time than their male counterparts breathing pure oxygen before going outside of the space shuttle. Sullivan quickly learned that there were flaws in the research, which she countered, and Abbey ended up approving the same requirements for men and women doing an extravehicular activity (EVA). 

Setting the Record

After the STS-41G crew had been named in the fall of 1983, a colleague—flush with excitement over the recent flight announcement — congratulated Sally K. Ride and Sullivan on their new titles: Ride being the first woman to fly in space twice and Sullivan the first woman to walk in space. Both shook their heads and explained that it would be many months before launch and that a Soviet woman would fly and do a spacewalk well before the space shuttle Challenger and her crew made it to orbit. As expected, the Soviets assigned cosmonaut Svetlana Y. Savitskaya to a second mission in 1983, less than a month after NASA’s crew announcement. In July 1984, Savitskaya, not Ride, went on to become the first woman to enter space twice and earned the distinction of being the first female to walk in space.

Sullivan was not disappointed at losing the title. As she recalled in an oral history interview, being selected for an EVA was an “extraordinary opportunity,” and it did not matter where she was in the queue. She could not understand how people arrived at the idea that the “seventh, tenth, or thirteenth … is [any] less meaningful … than some historical first.”

Others at the Johnson Space Center still thought there was a way they could best the Soviets. Sullivan’s trainers took note of how short Savitskaya’s EVA was. It was only about three and a half hours. “A little bit more than that,” they explained, and “you’ll get the duration record!” But the idea of breaking her record by a few minutes seemed ludicrous. “I’m certainly not going to go tromping around on dinner speeches … saying, ‘Well yes, but I have the duration record.’” 

“Hello, I’m right here!”

While the issue of breaking and setting records remained of interest at NASA more than twenty years after the Soviets sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space, Sullivan found herself grappling with other matters she found equally frustrating. First, there was the sexist media. No journalist asked how she was feeling about her role in the mission. Flying women in space was still new to the American news media in 1983—Ride had only flown her first mission in June, and while Judith A. Resnik had been named to a mission, she had not yet been in orbit. But Ride had not completed an EVA; only men had walked in space, and some found the activity challenging. Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan described his first EVA as the “spacewalk from hell.” Spacewalks can be physically demanding, and it was assumed that women might not have the strength to do so. Reporters asked commander Robert L. Crippen and Ride, “Do you think Kathy can do this?” Sitting at the preflight press conference she reminded reporters that she could speak for herself. “Hello, I’m right here! Hello. Hello.”

There was also the matter of why her spacewalking partner, David C. Leestma, led the EVA. She had two years seniority in the Astronaut Office, arriving in 1978; NASA named Leestma to the corps in 1980. She also worked on spacesuit issues and the mission’s payload longer than he had, but both were rookies on this mission. Sullivan did not think Crippen and Abbey thought she was incapable, but for traditional norms to have been breached in this instance she could not explain why she—the senior ranking astronaut—was playing a support role instead of leading. If anyone asked why, Sullivan told Crippen he—not she—would have to answer the tough questions.

Space Suit Fit

As she prepared for the flight, she began training in the shuttle EMU, which never quite fit her body. The suit’s elbow did not align with hers so when she bent her arm, she had to use extra force. The lower portion of the suit was misaligned, making it difficult to bend her knee. Being the first American woman to do a spacewalk, she decided what was most important was to perform the EVA and demonstrate the EMU worked for women. “I reckoned the wrong thing to do was to turn the first evolution of a woman doing a spacewalk into a controversy. … I just sucked it up and dealt with it.” The suit techs knew the EMU was not quite her size, but she made it work. Later, when assigned to STS-45, one of the techs noticed how poorly the suit fit. “We ought to do something about it. It ought to fit you,” he said. Sullivan responded, “We can start that conversation now, but if you think I was going to make that the conversation on the first EVA you’re crazy.”

A Walk to Remember

Two days after Sullivan’s thirty-third birthday, STS-41G launched on October 5, 1984. Once in orbit, the flight plan changed quickly. A problem with a malfunctioning Ku-band antenna meant that the EVA had to be pushed back to the day before reentry. Sullivan worried that the walk might be scrapped, but when they finally began the pre-breathing protocol, she relaxed. “Challenger, Houston: You are GO for EVA,” Sullivan recalled, “were the sweetest words I had ever heard.” Sullivan and Leestma’s EVA was short—only three hours and twenty-nine minutes—but busy. Leestma demonstrated it was possible to refuel satellites in orbit, while Sullivan monitored his work. When he wrapped up his task, Sullivan finally had the opportunity to “do something, not just watch things.” She stowed the malfunctioning antenna and before they went back inside the shuttle, they filmed a scene for an IMAX film, The Dream is Alive—where the two spacewalkers rose from the bottom of the space shuttle’s windows and waved at the crew inside, mimicking the “Kilroy Was Here” meme. When filming concluded, Sullivan and Leestma returned to Challenger. “My first spacewalking adventure,” Sullivan wrote in her memoir, “was over all too soon.” The next day, President Ronald Reagan called to ask Sullivan about her experience. “Kathy, when we met at the White House, I know you were excited about walking in space. Was it what you expected?” he asked. Sullivan responded affirmatively and added, “I think it was the most fantastic experience of my life.”

I think it was the most fantastic experience of my life.

Kathryn Sullivan

NASA Astronaut

When she returned to JSC she learned that the EVA flight team had tried to figure out how to send her a diplomatic message to stay outside longer to beat Savitskaya’s record. There ended up being a “five-or six-minute difference” between Sullivan and Savitskaya, “and in the wrong direction as far as they were concerned.”

Despite all the challenges she faced as the first American woman to walk in space, Sullivan called the EVA “a fabulously cool experience.” She hoped to do another, but she never received another assignment to walk in space. She recognized what a unique opportunity she had—very few people have flown in space, and even fewer “get to sneak outside. I’m not going to diminish one dose of sneaking outside just because I didn’t get two, three, or four.”

About the Author

Jennifer Ross-Nazzal

NASA Human Spaceflight Historian

Jennifer Ross-Nazzal is the NASA Human Spaceflight Historian. She is the author of Winning the West for Women: The Life of Suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe and Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

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Does Distant Planet Host Volcanic Moon Like Jupiter’s Io?

The existence of a moon located outside our solar system has never been confirmed but a new NASA-led study may provide indirect evidence for one.

New research done at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reveals potential signs of a rocky, volcanic moon orbiting an exoplanet 635 light-years from Earth. The biggest clue is a sodium cloud that the findings suggest is close to but slightly out of sync with the exoplanet, a Saturn-size gas giant named WASP-49 b, although additional research is needed to confirm the cloud’s behavior. Within our solar system, gas emissions from Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io create a similar phenomenon.

Although no exomoons (moons of planets outside our solar system) have been confirmed, multiple candidates have been identified. It’s likely these planetary companions have gone undetected because they are too small and dim for current telescopes to detect.

The sodium cloud around WASP-49 b was first detected in 2017, catching the attention of Apurva Oza, formerly a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and now a staff scientist at Caltech, which manages JPL. Oza has spent years investigating how exomoons might be detected via their volcanic activity. For example, Io, the most volcanic body in our solar system, constantly spews sulfur dioxide, sodium, potassium, and other gases that can form vast clouds around Jupiter up to 1,000 times the giant planet’s radius. It’s possible that astronomers looking at another star system could detect a gas cloud like Io’s even if the moon itself were too small to see.

Both WASP-49 b and its star are composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of sodium. Neither contains enough sodium to account for the cloud, which appears to be coming from a source that is producing roughly 220,000 pounds (100,000 kilograms) of sodium per second. Even if the star or planet could produce that much sodium, it’s unclear what mechanism could eject it into space.

Could the source be a volcanic exomoon? Oza and his colleagues set out to try to answer that question. The work immediately proved challenging because from such a great distance, the star, planet, and cloud often overlap and occupy the same tiny, faraway point in space. So the team had to watch the system over time.

A Cloud on the Move

As detailed in a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, they found several pieces of evidence that suggest the cloud is created by a separate body orbiting the planet, though additional research is needed to confirm the cloud’s behavior. For example, twice their observations indicated the cloud suddenly increased in size, as if being refueled, when it was not next to the planet.

They also observed the cloud moving faster than the planet in a way that would seem impossible unless it was being generated by another body moving independent of, and faster, than the planet.

“We think this is a really critical piece of evidence,” said Oza. “The cloud is moving in the opposite direction that physics tells us it should be going if it were part of the planet’s atmosphere.”

While these observations have intrigued the research team, they say they would need to observe the system for longer to be sure of the cloud’s orbit and structure.

A Chance of Volcanic Clouds

For part of their sleuthing, the researchers used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. Oza’s co-author Julia Seidel, a research fellow at the observatory, established that the cloud is located high above the planet’s atmosphere, much like the cloud of gas Io produces around Jupiter.  

They also used a computer model to illustrate the exomoon scenario and compare it to the data. The exoplanet WASP-49 b orbits the star every 2.8 days with clocklike regularity, but the cloud appeared and disappeared behind the star or behind the planet at seemingly irregular intervals. Using their model, Oza and team showed that a moon with an eight-hour orbit around the planet could explain the cloud’s motion and activity, including the way it sometimes seemed to move in front of the planet and did not seem to be associated with a particular region of the planet.

“The evidence is very compelling that something other than the planet and star are producing this cloud,” said Rosaly Lopes, a planetary geologist at JPL who co-authored the study with Oza. “Detecting an exomoon would be quite extraordinary, and because of Io, we know that a volcanic exomoon is possible.” 

A Violent End

On Earth, volcanoes are driven by heat in its core left over from the planet’s formation. Io’s volcanoes, on the other hand, are driven by Jupiter’s gravity, which squeezes the moon as it gets closer to the planet then reduces its “grip” as the moon moves away. This flexing heats the small moon’s interior, leading to a process called tidal volcanism.

If WASP-49 b has a moon similar in size to Earth’s, Oza and team estimate that the rapid loss of mass combined with the squeezing from the planet’s gravity will eventually cause it to disintegrate.

“If there really is a moon there, it will have a very destructive ending,” said Oza.  

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

2024-135

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