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A
DAY IN THE LIFE OF NORTH AMERICA A
sequence of GOES-11 images for August 3,4 and 7 illustrating cloud formations
and various storms throughout the country. GOES-11 was in a testing mode at the
time, experimenting with one-minute scanning.
SIGNIFICANT
ENVIRONMENTAL/WEATHER EVENTS While
its primary mission is weather, GOES has also observed significant environmental
conditions such as these fires burning in Montana/Idaho/Wyoming on July 27, 2000.
GOES-M
SPACECRAFT The last of this series of Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellite (GOES), GOES-M will be renamed GOES-12 once in orbit.
Housing a new instrument to watch for dangerous space weather, GOES-M will be
placed in standby spot and activated when needed to replace the GOES-8, 10 or
11 spacecraft. It will fly in a geostationary orbit, meaning that it rotates with
the Earth to remain in the same spot over the U.S. The fifth in the series,
GOES-M is carrying the Solar X-ray Imager (SXI) to test it for future missions.
The instrument will monitor space weather (solar flares, solar active regions,
coronal holes and coronal mass ejections ) to determine when to issue warnings
for ground and space systems. GOES satellites are also key in monitoring volcanoes,
forest fires, thunderstorms, rainfall, tornadoes and hurricanes.
FUTURE
OF WEATHER SATELLITES Many NASA
researchers are looking to "sensor webs" as a cost-effective new way
to study Earth and its climate. The technology would link various satellites together
to gather data together, then analyze the many perspectives. The proposed "webs"
would include land surface imagers, cloud and water vapor imagers and other systems.
BLUE
MARBLE This high-quality depiction features Hurricane Linda off the
west coast of North America, sediments around the mouth of the Amazon River and
the shallow waters of the Caribbean. Heavy vegetation is represented as green,
while sparse vegetation is shown in yellow. GOES and SeaWiFS data were used to
create this data-driven image. Back
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