Sunday, August 7, 2011

NASA Works to Improve Air Quality


Throughout the month of July, NASA, working with planes, weather balloons and ground stations, has been gathering information on how pollutants such as ozone and particles are reacting in our atmosphere.

The short-term goal of NASA's research is to learn more about these pollutants, where the come from and where they travel. Long0-term goals include being able to monitor the level of air pollutions hour-by-hour by satellite. This type of research can help the Environmental Protection Agency and other parts of government enforce air quality standards.

To gather research, NASA has chosen to fly over the skies of the Baltimore-Washington area, an area with extremely polluted air.

One reason NASA picked the Baltimore-Washington traffic corridor to fly over is that it's a particularly bad place to inhale. Maryland is known for frequently violating the national ambient air quality standard for both ozone and for particulate matter. While air conditions have improved over the years, there are still millions of Americans living in places that fail to meet EPA air quality standards.

NASA is hoping to continue this research in an effort to improve air quality world-wide!

Remember that taking steps to improve the air quality in your own home or business is as simple as phone call to Air Purifying Systems and Solutions!


Source: NPR

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