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Reporter: Well it's officially summer and that means we're all heading outdoors for

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pool parties and picnics, but as you fire up the grill, you might

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be surprised to know that the air we breathe outdoors each summer is

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actually getting cleaner across the country. New images are showing these

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improvements from the unique perspective of space, and here to tell us more about it is

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NASA scientist Dr. Michelle Thaller, thank you for joining us. Michelle: Hey, great to be here!

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Thank you. Reporter: So as the summer heats up, we often report on bad

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air quality, but what are these images really showing us about air quality in

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our area? Michelle: Well we actually have some very good news to report on today that's

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coming from our Aura satellite, which has been actually celebrating its tenth anniversary in about two weeks.

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We're looking at nitrogen dioxide. The red color on this map

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of the United States, this is 2005, shows you where there was a lot of nitrogen dioxide.

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Now in 2011, there's a lot less red. Nitrogen dioxide

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is actually responsible for a lot of different sorts of pollution like smog

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and ozone. Here's the northeast United States, look at all that red in

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2005. Now let's go to 2011. So you can see there really had been a

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measurable difference. Things have gotten better in the last ten years.

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Reporter: Why is this happening: Michelle: Well nitrogen dioxide has produced

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by things like power plants, it comes out of smokestacks, and also by traffic.

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So what we've been doing is actually monitoring our emissions. We now

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scrub the emissions coming out of power plants so that there isn't much of this nitrogen dioxide gas

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coming out at all. And even though there are more cars on the road today and people are

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driving more miles than ever before, a car today only pollutes about

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1/20th the amount a car in 1960 did. So when you go and get your

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emissions checked, this is now part of our life, this has had a real effect on our

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air quality. Reporter: So what have we learned about air quality around

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the world? Michelle: Well around the world, the picture of course is more complicated.

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Across the United States, we see this measurable improvement. There are also parts of the world

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where air quality is getting worse right now. Here's a map where you can actually see nitrogen

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dioxide concentrations globally. And you'll notice that there are areas that are lit up

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these are areas where there's a lot of this being produced. There's actually very bad air quality

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down in places like Asia. So that's something to monitor and to keep improving.

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Reporter: So why is NASA studying air quality? Michelle:

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Well at NASA, we have a very unique perspective, we can actually look down from space and see

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the planet as a whole. Right now we have 20 different satellites that are up there

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measuring different aspects of this whole system of the Earth. This is a beautiful visualization

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where you can actually see different sorts of air pollution. There's

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dust from deserts, there's burning material from forest fires,

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there's emissions from things like coal plants and power plants from Asia again. So

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we see the entire planet as a whole. There are no borders to the atmosphere, all of the

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air we breathe globally. So with our satellites up above,

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we see this happening, we can see and measure what the air quality is.

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Reporter:  Well it's great to finally hear some good news about the environment. Where can we go to learn

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more? Michelle: Well to learn more, you can go to NASA.gov/earthrightnow

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where you can find out about all of our different Earth science monitoring missions,

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including the Aura spacecraft, which as I mentioned is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

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Reporter: Great, thank you Michelle. Michelle: Thank you.

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[beep beep... beep beep... beep beep...]

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