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Although the coronavirus pandemic has turned a lot of lives upside down and has forced countries into lockdown to slow the spread. Recently, space agency NASA has revealed that the pollution in parts of the United States has significantly decreased because of the lockdown.
Express reports that according to the space agency’s data from the satellites, there was a 30 percent decrease in environmentally harmful emissions in the northeastern parts of the United States, which is now thought to be the worst-hit country by the pandemic with hundreds of thousands of people infected and over 20,000 deaths. The emissions of NO2 or nitrogen dioxide, which are mainly attributed to human activity, went down from the average emissions released between 2015 and 2019.
“Over the past several weeks, NASA satellite measurements have revealed significant reductions in air pollution over the major Metropolitan areas in Northeast United States. Similar reductions have been observed in other regions of the world. These recent improvements in air quality have come at a high cost, as communities grapple with widespread lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders as a result of the spread of COVID-19,” said the agency.
NASA added that March 2020 showed the lowest monthly atmospheric nitrogen dioxide levels than any March during the OMI data record.
Although the numbers may signal a good environmental impact, there will be factors that can change the data’s interpretation. One factor of which is the presence of clouds and NASA said that the satellites can only measure nitrogen concentrations when the cloud average is low.
Even though many of NASA’s missions are put on hold because of the pandemic, it was previously reported that NASA released an image of a most recent launch. Three astronauts were blasted towards space on April 9th, NASA’s Chris Cassidy and Russian space agency Rocosmos’ Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin, all of whom were to be on a six-hour flight towards the International Space Station.
The three astronauts will be spending six months in the space laboratory. The launch took place in Kazakhstan, showing the MS-16 rocket’s launch into space, leaving behind a large trail of smoke.
