NASA's Flying Laboratory Studies Impact Of Air Pollution On Arctic

PALMDALE, CA - MARCH 31: Data Systems Operator David Van Gilst makes final adjustments to equipment aboard a DC-8 jet to be used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a flying laboratory in one of the largest environmental science campaigns ever conducted to study the impact of air pollution on the Arctic's atmospheric chemistry and changing climate, at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on March 31, 2008 in Palmdale, California. For three weeks in April, NASA will use three research aircraft, satellites, weather balloons and more than 100 scientists based in Fairbanks, Alaska to study the "arctic haze" of air pollution that forms from sources across the Northern Hemisphere as part of the Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS) field campaign. In July a second phase of study is scheduled to be conducted out of Alberta and the Northwest Territories of Canada to focus on pollution from large boreal forest fires in northwest Canada. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)