Sentinel-5’s imaging spectrometer
The Copernicus Sentinel-5 mission has one instrument hosted on the MetOp Second Generation A-type series of weather satellites. The instrument is a high-resolution imaging spectrometer that spans the ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared and shortwave infrared ranges (UVNS).
The spectrometer can see much more than the human eye. By detecting lightwaves across seven spectral bands, the UVNS instrument can differentiate 1000 times more colours than the human eye.
This enables Sentinel-5 to detect pollution and harmful components of the atmosphere that we cannot see. And it does this all over the world. The mission provides data on the composition of Earth’s atmosphere – and how it changes on a daily basis.
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The spectrometer observes ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, formaldehyde, glyoxal, carbon monoxide, methane, aerosols and the UV index. It also provides data on the vertical distribution of ozone, aerosols and, in special cases such as volcanic emissions, also sulphur dioxide, providing a three-dimensional view.
It can tell us when we are most at risk of sunburn from ultraviolet radiation and can detect emissions of greenhouse gases such as methane.
Spectrometers separate light into its component wavelengths and measure the intensity of each wavelength. Sentinel-5’s high-resolution UVNS spectrometer measures both the intensity of light directly from the Sun, as well as sunlight that is reflected by Earth. Analysing the ratio between the two measurements reveals the concentration of the different components in the atmosphere.
