She is collecting air samples to be shipped back to her lab where she will test for different gases. The plane is equipped with 25 state-of-the-art instruments to monitor air pollution. Nicola Blake works at the University of California and is one of 34 scientists on board that NASA has brought together. Two former U.S. Air Force pilots take off from Osan Air base in South Korea. Working with NASA, they are piloting a flying laboratory, a modified DC-8 packed with millions of dollars worth of highly sensitive instruments to register air pollution, determine where those pollutants originate from and assess how air pollution can be more accurately measured from space.

Source: CNN June 02, 2016 11:48 UTC