- NASA has successfully launched the Tropospheric Emission Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument on 7 April 2023, a significant step forward in monitoring major air pollutants. TEMPO will be America’s first space-based instrument.
- The instrument will provide unprecedented resolution, allowing scientists to observe air quality from space with accuracy down to just four square miles.
- The TEMPO mission aims to revolutionize the way air quality is monitored, helping to improve life on Earth.
- South Korea’s Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer, the first instrument in the constellation, was launched into space in 2020 on the Korean Aerospace Research Institute GEOKOMPSAT-2B satellite and is measuring pollution in Asia.
- ESA’s (European Space Agency) Sentinel-4 satellite, which is due to launch in 2024, will make measurements over Europe and North Africa.
What will this instrument Observe:-
- The instrument is designed to measure several key pollutants, including ozone, nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, and formaldehyde.
- These pollutants are all known to have harmful effects on human health and the environment, so monitoring their levels is important for understanding and mitigating their impacts.
- TEMPO, a NASA instrument, is set to revolutionize the way scientists observe air quality from space by providing unparalleled resolution of monitoring major air pollutants down to four square miles.
- As a fixed geostationary orbit above the equator, TEMPO will be able to measure air quality over North America hourly during the daytime, surpassing existing limits of about 100 square miles in the U.S.
