
Caeli: The Sky Is Not the Limit in Measuring Particulate Matter in the Atmosphere
Measuring by Satellite
Caeli is a startup dedicated to providing insight into air quality with a view from above. The satellites orbiting our planet provide their end-users with chronological and (near) real-time information. Satellite imagery can be a cheaper and more readily available option than remote sensing as a tool for measuring the molecular composition of our atmosphere. Generating maps displaying particulate matter such as Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Ammonia (NH3), Methane (CH4) and Ozone (O3) can help the public and government understand how changes to the atmosphere may affect health or influence the climate.
An enormous amount of visual and quantitative satellite data needs to be processed to create these real-time insights. Copernicus Sentinel imagery offers Caeli historical insights to observe change in air quality over time. The raw multispectral and geographically calibrated source data must not only be able to be processed quickly but also organized chronologically and stored overtime in accessible files. The original Caeli database was not scalable enough to support these data streams, so we needed a new architecture.
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