WATCH: NASA & SpaceX launch air quality monitoring device to monitor pollution from space

On Friday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched successfully from Florida, carrying a NASA device that could revolutionize air pollution monitoring in North America. The Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument will provide scientists with an unprecedented level of detail, allowing them to track air pollutants and their sources from space, even down to specific neighborhoods, as per a report from CBS news.

Spacecraft separation confirmed! The Intelsat satellite hosting our @NASAEarth & @CenterForAstro #TEMPO mission is flying free from its @SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and on its way to geostationary orbit. pic.twitter.com/gKYczeHqV5

— NASA (@NASA)

Deployment of @Intelsat IS-40e confirmed pic.twitter.com/LSKxNia9R7

— SpaceX (@SpaceX)

Kevin Daugherty, the project manager of NASA's TEMPO, stated that the device will be capable of measuring air pollution and quality hourly during the daytime, spanning from Puerto Rico to Canada's tar sands, across greater North America. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other organizations responsible for combatting atmospheric pollution will utilize the information.

What is TEMPO?

NASA's new Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument is a groundbreaking development in the study of air pollution. According to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, TEMPO's mission is not only about studying pollution but also improving the quality of life on Earth. By providing data on everything from traffic to forest fires and volcanoes, TEMPO will help improve air quality across North America and protect the planet.

TEMPO is unique because it will be hosted on an Intelsat communications satellite in geostationary orbit. This feature sets it apart from existing pollution-monitoring satellites that are in low Earth orbit, which means they can only provide observations once a day at a fixed time. With TEMPO, scientists will be able to monitor atmospheric pollution across North America on an hourly basis during the daytime, down to a neighborhood level with a spatial resolution of 4 square miles (10 square kilometers). The instrument has been described as a chemistry laboratory in space and is about the size of a washing machine.

"You've probably seen satellite imagery of hurricanes, and you can see it moving and swirling, you're visualizing the weather. Instead of seeing clouds, what we're going to see are these largely invisible pollutants, and we call that 'chemical weather," said TEMPO researcher Laura Judd to CBS. "You are going to see where they originate and how they're blowing, where they're going. You'll also see them go away, because they'll interact chemically and turn into some other species or they'll deposit onto the ground. But largely, what TEMPO's going to give us is the visualization of chemical weather," she added.