New images from NASA's Aura satellite reveal that air quality in the U.S. is improving based on nitrogen dioxide levels across the country.
Taking pollution levels between 2005 and 2007, researchers compared levels of the common pollutant nitrogen dioxide during that time to pollution levels in the air between 2009 and 2011, Smithsonian Magazine reported.
NASA's Ozone Monitoring Instrument on the Aura satellite has been in orbit for 10 years, and its decade's worth of data indicates that nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen.
Levels of nitrogen, a pollutant that stems from the combustion of gas or coal, have fallen 32 percent in New York and 42 percent in Atlanta. The yellow-brown gas has decreased in cities due to a combination of "regulations, technology improvements and economic changes," NASA said in a press release.
The new images come from NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio and are based on data and input from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Nitrogen dioxide, which can cause respiratory problems, is monitored through regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency along with five other common pollutants.
The American Lung Association also found that overall air quality had improved in its annual State of the Air report; however, the study also showed that ozone levels had risen slightly year-over-year.
Both the ALA and NASA cautioned that more than 140 million people in the U.S. are breathing unhealthy air as they live in areas with risky amounts of air pollution.
"While our air quality has certainly improved over the last few decades, there is still work to do--ozone and particulate matter are still problems," Bryan Duncan, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in the NASA press release.
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