Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols Mission

About Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols Mission:

• It is a joint mission between NASA and the Italian Space Agency ASI.
• This will investigate the health impacts of air pollution in the world’s most populated cities.
• Its primary goal is to benefit societal health. Epidemiologists and public health researchers will be directly working on the development of a satellite mission.
• It will consist of the PLATiNO-2 satellite, which will be provided by ASI, and a science instrument that will be built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
• The MAIA mission will collect and analyse data from the observatory, sensors on the ground and atmospheric models.
• The JPL hosts a pointable spectropolarimetric camera which captures images from multiple angles in the ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared and shortwave infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• During the course of the three-year mission, MAIA will focus on 11 primary target areas that include major urban centres across the world: Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Rome, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Barcelona, Spain, Beijing, Johannesburg, New Delhi, Taipei, Taiwan; and Tel Aviv.
• The MAIA observatory is set to launch before the end of 2024.

Q1) What are aerosols?

Aerosols are tiny solid or liquid particles suspended in air or as gas. Aerosols can be natural, such as fog or gas from volcanic eruptions, or artificial, such as smoke from burning fossil fuels.

Source: NASA and Italian Space Agency join hands for satellite mission to monitor air pollution

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