NASA's newly-installed EMIT instrument shares first view of Earth from space

NASA's newly-installed Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument on the space station has shared its first view of Earth. This milestone, dubbed “first light,” took place at 7:51 p.m. PDT (10:51 p.m. EDT) on July 27 as it passed over Western Australia.

EMIT was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to map the mineral dust composition of Earth's arid regions to better understand how dust affects climate heating and cooling. It launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft carrying more than 5,800 pounds of science experiments, crew supplies, and other cargo from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 14. 

The Candarm2 robotic arm of the International Space Station was used to remove EMIT from the Dragon spacecraft and install it on the outside of the station - a process that took more than 40 hours.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

EMIT's state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer will collect more than a billion dust-source-composition measurements around the globe over the course of a year, helping climate scientists better understand the impact of airborne dust particles in heating and cooling the planet's atmosphere.

The instrument will also provide a detailed picture of how much dust comes from dark versus light minerals, allowing scientists to determine whether dust heats or cools the planet overall, as well as regionally and locally.

Further, NASA's EMIT will collect information on 10 important dust varieties, including those that contain iron oxides, clays, and carbonates to help scientists assess precisely what effects mineral dust has on different ecosystems and processes.

EMIT, the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation instrument, shared its first view of Earth after being installed outside of the @Space_Station. The milestone, called "first light," happened on July 27 as the station passed over Western Australia. https://t.co/TWYa8TEAM8 pic.twitter.com/B5ATyMVqhc

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) July 29, 2022