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Mahesh

10/04/23 13:37 PM IST

NASA launches device to monitor air pollution from space

In News
  • A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched from Florida recently, carrying a new NASA device that can track air pollution over North America.
About TEMPO
  • The instrument will measure pollution and air quality across greater North America on an hourly basis during the daytime, all the way “from Puerto Rico up to the tar sands of Canada.
  • The data will be used by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other agencies responsible for tackling atmospheric pollution.
  • A unique feature of TEMPO, which is about the size of a washing machine and has been described as a chemistry laboratory in space, is that it will be hosted on an Intelsat communications satellite in geostationary orbit.
  • By monitoring the effects of everything from rush-hour traffic to pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, NASA data will help improve air quality across North America and protect our planet.
  • Existing pollution-monitoring satellites are in low Earth orbit, which means they can only provide observations once a day at a fixed time.
  • TEMPO will be able to measure atmospheric pollution down to a spatial resolution of 4 square miles (10 square kilometers), or neighborhood level
  • TEMPO will have multiple applications from measuring levels of various pollutants to providing air quality forecasts and helping the development of emission-control strategies.
Significance
  • More than 40 per cent of the US population, 137 million people, live in places with unhealthy levels of particle pollution or ozone, according to the American Lung Association. Air pollution is blamed for some 60,000 premature deaths a year.
  • Among the pollutants tracked by TEMPO will be nitrogen dioxide, produced from the combustion of fossil fuels, formaldehyde and ozone.
Source- Indian Express

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