How NASA is helping keep California’s coast clean

For the first time, an instrument on the International Space Station is being used to combat pollution entering the coast of California. Another reason NASA science is increasingly important for use here on Earth.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shared that one of its missions, Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), can be used for much more than just mapping mineral deposits; it can detect pollution in water.

The test was a wastewater plume spewing out of the Tijuana River just south of San Diego. EMIT was able to use imaging spectroscopy, a process JPL pioneered in the 80s to break up light into its separate wavelengths to tell what it’s made out of, to find a harmful pollutant in the plume.

This allowed ground crews to go and sample the water, confirming the findings of phycocyanin, an organism that can make both animals and humans sick if ingested.

If you live on the coast, knowing the water quality is probably no longer a guess, as you can check plenty of online resources to see if there’s anything unsafe in the water near you. However, it can still sometimes be a guess for the scientists and regulators who have to go out and sample the water to find any contamination.

EMIT’s new mission could make that less of a guessing game with a bird’s-eye view of potential sources of pollution.

Space Explored’s Take

NASA science has been taking a big hit this year in the agency’s budget, being nearly stripped out. The biggest cuts are coming to Earth Science missions, which consist mostly of climate monitoring satellites with a handful of other research missions like EMIT.

The biggest loser? US citizens, as the nation will lose not just high-paying jobs but also sustain a hit to the steady buildup of missions to help predict national disasters, track the contamination of our water, and attempt to keep our Earth better for future generations.

While some attempts are underway by Congress to get NASA’s budget at least back to where it was for the last two years, those remain stuck in committee.