As the scientists and researchers around the world are trying to wrap their minds around the ravaging pandemic, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) continues to monitor the pandemic through its satellites in order to establish a link between the pandemic and the earth’s environment, per NASA’s official release.

Hannah Kerner, an assistant research professor at the University of Maryland in College Park, said in a statement: “Satellites collect data all the time and don’t require us to go out anywhere.”

Kerner is among eight researchers recently awarded a rapid-turnaround project grant, which extends support to investigators as they explore how Covid-19 lockdown measures are impacting the environment and how the environment can affect the spread of the virus.

The newest group of projects includes six that are looking to satellite images to help reveal how Covid-19 lockdown measures are impacting food security, fire ecology, urban surface heat, clouds and warming, air pollution and precipitation, and water quality and aquatic ecosystems.

Two projects are exploring how the environment could be impacted and how the virus is spread, by monitoring dust and weather, the release added.

NASA’s Earth Science Division manages these projects that find new ways to use Earth-observing data to better understand regional-to-global environmental, economic, and societal impacts of the pandemic.

NASA scientists are examining the impact of the pandemic on the growth of seasonal crops and naturally occurring forest fires.

They are also monitoring parking lots and other surfaces to see if they are hotter or cooler during the pandemic.

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