In case anyone is wondering, studying these aerosols is very important to our understanding of global ecology because the desert dust coming off the Sahara [1] supplies critical nutrients like phosphorus from the Bodélé Depression [2] in Chad to the Amazon rainforest on the other side of the planet [3]!

This satellite will improve our ability to study this planetary transfer of nutrients and see if we can discover any other such connections.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saharan_dust

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bod%C3%A9l%C3%A9_Depression

[3] https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-...