A First: NASA Spots Single Methane Leak from Space

Comparison of detected methane plumes over Aliso Canyon, California, acquired 11 days apart in Jan. 2016 by NASA AVIRIS and Hyperion instruments on NASA satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Atmospheric methane is a potent greenhouse gas, but the percentage of it produced through human activities is still poorly understood. Future instruments on orbiting satellites can help address this issue by surveying human-produced methane emissions. Recent data from the Aliso Canyon event, a large accidental methane release near Porter Ranch, California, demonstrates this capability. The Hyperion imaging spectrometer onboard NASA's EO-1 satellite successfully detected this release event on three different overpasses during the winter of 2015-2016. This is the first time the methane plume from a single facility has been observed from space. The orbital observations were consistent with airborne measurements. This image pair shows a comparison of detected methane plumes over Aliso Canyon, California, acquired 11 days apart in Jan. 2016 by: (left) NASA's AVIRIS instrument on a NASA ER-2 aircraft at 4.1 miles (6.6 kilometers) altitude and (right) by the Hyperion instrument on NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite in low-Earth orbit. The additional red streaks visible in the EO-1 Hyperion image result from measurement noise -- Hyperion was not specifically designed for methane sensing and is not as sensitive as AVIRIS-NG. Additionally, the EO-1 satellite's current orbit provided poor illumination conditions. Future instruments with much greater sensitivity on orbiting satellites can survey the biggest sources of human-produced methane around the world. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20716