Science, Discovery, Tech and Environment · 12 April 2026
NASA’s PACE satellite pinpoints air-pollution sources with kilometre-scale precision
Exam-focused facts from the 12 April 2026 current affairs briefing.
Key facts
- NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite was launched on 8 February 2024.
- PACE’s Ocean Colour Instrument (OCI) detects nitrogen dioxide emissions from individual highways, power plants and shipping facilities at ~1 km spatial resolution.
- OCI senses 340 nm–2260 nm wavelengths to deliver vertical column density of nitrogen dioxide at nadir.
- Nitrogen dioxide’s short atmospheric lifetime allows daily tracking of emission signatures back to specific sources.
- PACE data complement NASA’s TEMPO mission that monitors pollution movement over North America every hour.