NASA announces four major science missions for 2022 to 'protect' Earth

NASA has announced four fresh and major science missions for 2022 which it claims are necessary to “protect our home planet”. According to the agency, these missions will help scientists gather more data about fundamental climate systems and processes including extreme storms, surface water and oceans, and atmospheric dust. In addition to this, these experiments would also enhance the ability of scientists to monitor the ever-changing planet. Let us take a look at what NASA has in its box of experiments for 2022. 

Mission TROPICS

Under this mission, NASA will use six small TROPICS satellites to gather measurements of tropical cyclones in an improved and rapid manner. Aimed to improve observations of tropical cyclones, all six satellites will provide microwave observations of a storm's precipitation, temperature, and humidity as quickly as every 50 minutes. The agency stated, that this mission will also detail the factors that cause the intensification of cyclones and contribute to weather forecasting models. Dr William Blackwell, leader of the TROPICS team said as per NASA's statement, "The coolest part of this program is its impact on helping society. These storms affect a lot of people. The higher frequency observations provided by TROPICS have the potential to support weather forecasting that may help people get to safety sooner". 

Mission EMIT

Also called the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), this mission will map the point of origin of dust so that scientists can estimate its composition in order to determine how dust affects the planet. In other words, EMIT will measure the impact of mineral dust on climate, ecosystems, air quality, and human health with an imaging spectrometer aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for one full year. EMIT's principal investigator Dr. Robert Green said as per NASA, "EMIT will close a gap in our knowledge about arid land regions of our planet and answer key questions about how mineral dust interacts with the Earth system". 

Mission JPSS-2 

With the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) mission, scientists will predict extreme weather conditions including floods, wildfires, volcanoes and more to forecast extreme storms in advance. Currently, the JPSS satellites are orbiting the Earth from the North to the South Pole and are providing data and images twice a day, as per NASA. The agency will launch the JPSS satellite in 2022 followed by three more satellites in the coming years which will be functional till the 2030s. 

Mission SWOT

Short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography, SWOT will evaluate the world’s oceans, meaning determine how much water Earth’s oceans, lakes, and rivers contain. Targeted for launch in November next year, the mission will also help scientists understand the effects of climate change on the oceans and their ability to absorb greenhouse gases. 

(Image: Twitter/@NASA)