The about page does a pretty good job: https://www.methanesat.org/about/ https://www.methanesat.org/about/ Here's my even shorter version: Methane is a potent

The about page does a pretty good job: https://www.methanesat.org/about/ https://www.methanesat.org/about/ Here's my even shorter version: Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Methane emissions follow a heavy-tailed distribution: a few sources are responsible for a lot of emissions. Some emissions (related to the oil industry, and those related to agriculture) are due to leaks or transient conditions that can be remedied with little effort. You can detect methane concentrations, and even active plumes, from space with imaging spectroscopy. This is a technology that has been demonstrated by space agencies, including NASA and ESA. Some of those who pioneered these methods (which were science investigations) are trying to push out a simpler, operational version of this technology to get more methane concentration measurements, and faster.