Invisible air polluting gases revealed by satellite imagery

• The Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, operational since early 2018, is starting to return high resolution maps of air polluting gases that are invisible to the human eye. Amongst the first images released by mission scientists were plumes of nitrogen dioxide flowing from power plants as well as traffic-choked cities in Europe.
• Sentinel-5P, the first Copernicus satellite dedicated to monitoring atmospheric chemistry, carriesa single instrument called Tropomi. The Tropomi is a spectrometer that observes the reflected sunlight coming up off the Earth and analyzes its many different colours.
• Sentinel-5P is the sixth in a constellation of satellites that are part of Copernicus - an Earth and environmental monitoring programme run by the European Space Agency and the European Union.
• The satellite can produce daily global maps of the gases and particles that pollute the air. “While pollution puts the health of millions of people at risk, it is important to understand exactly what is in the air so that accurate forecasts can be issued, and, ultimately, appropriate mitigation policies put in place,” the European Space Agency says.
• Specifically, the Sentinel-5P satellite is measuring global levels of the following key trace gases: ozone (O₃), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH₄) and formaldehyde (HCHO), as well as aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere.
• All of these gases affect the air that we breathe and therefore our health.