Why in news?  A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched from Florida, carrying a new NASA device that can track air pollution over North America.

Highlights:

• TEMPO – Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution
• Instrument  to monitor air pollutants and their emission sources from space more comprehensively than ever before, down to the neighbourhood level.
• Measure pollution and air quality across greater North America on an hourly basis during the daytime, all the way “from Puerto Rico up to the tar sands of Canada.”
• Size of a washing machine
• Described as a chemistry laboratory in space
• Hosted on an Intelsat communications satellite in geostationary orbit.
• Will be situated in a geostationary orbit 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers)
• Match the rotation of the Earth, meaning it will stay over the same location North America at all times