NASA wings above Seoul

Korea and the United States kicked off ASIA-AQ, a research campaign to uncover the cause of air pollution in Asia, deploying cutting-edge equipment, including the GEMS satellite and Gulfstream and DC-8 aircraft from February to March.

NASA's research DC-8 aircraft fitted with air quality measurement equipment passes near Lotte Tower in southern Seoul on Monday morning. Korea and the United States kicked off ASIA-AQ, a research campaign to uncover the cause of air pollution in Asia, deploying cutting-edge equipment, including the GEMS satellite and Gulfstream and DC-8 aircraft from February to March, when air pollution is most severe. [YONHAP]

Korea and the United States kicked off a research campaign to uncover the cause of air pollution across Asia, with a DC-8 aircraft fitted with air quality measurement equipment flying over Seoul on Monday.

The ASIA-AQ, a joint effort by Korea's National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), kicked off last week. Aircraft, satellites and ground sites will be used in the project.

The joint research effort comes eight years after Korea led the KORUS-AQ campaign with NASA in 2016. The KORUS-AQ campaign found that 52 percent of ultrafine particles examined in Seoul were picked up from within Korea and 48 percent from overseas, including 34 percent from China.