The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has shared the first images from its recently deployed GOES-18 weather satellite.
The stunning captures (below) were obtained by the satellite’s Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument as it orbited about 22,000 miles above Earth.
The ABI observes Earth via sixteen different channels. Each one detects energy at different wavelengths along the electromagnetic spectrum, enabling it to gather data on Earth’s atmosphere, land, and oceans. According to NOAA, data from ABI’s channels can be combined to create imagery known as GeoColor, which looks similar to what the human eye would see from space. Analyzing the data in different ways enables meteorologists to highlight and examine various features of interest.
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