University of Maryland researchers use NASA’s TEMPO satellite to track how thunderstorms both worsen smog and help scrub harmful gases.

Alabama will be the first state to use nitrogen in an execution. If it goes smoothly, other states are likely to follow.

The Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment. There is reason to doubt that Alabama will be able to pull off the world’s first execution by nitrogen gas flawlessly.

As Alabama sets the course for the controversial execution method’s future, activists and legal scholars say eyewitness accounts could halt widespread adoption.