MethaneSAT, which its builders say is the most advanced methane-imaging satellite ever put in orbit, sought to globally map, then track emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. Their aim is to spur action to plug leaks, initially from the oil and gas industry, as a way to significantly lower near-term warming of the atmosphere. The satellite's main instrument, a highly sensitive spectrometer that can detect methane sources from space with unparalleled precision.
Google DeepMind introduced AlphaEarth Foundations, an artificial intelligence model designed to integrate massive volumes of Earth observation data into a unified digital representation of the planet. The system, described as functioning like a "virtual satellite", can process petabytes of multimodal inputs. The model addresses a long-standing challenge in Earth science: the difficulty of combining data from diverse sources and refresh rates into formats that researchers can use consistently.