NASA Has Launched Aura Satellite to Study Ozone-Destroying Chemicals in Atmosphere

"If we don't understand what we're doing to our home planet, we may drive ourselves all into extinction."

- Mike Tanner, NASA Scientist, Aura Satellite

August 16, 2004  Cape Canaveral, Florida - As the ozone holes over the North and South polar regions have enlarged every year since monitoring began in 1979, the U. S. government and scientists agree it is important to study the Earth's atmospheric chemistry more closely. After several delays, NASA finally launched an environmental research satellite called "Aura" (Latin for "air" or "breath") on Sunday, August 15, 2004, from Vandenberg AFB in California.