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| | | | | | | First images from MHS and GOME-2 on MetOp-A
2 November 2006
| First Level-1b image from MHS (Channel 1) on 31 October 2006, 12:27 UTC. The flight direction of MetOp-A is from South America to Antarctica, and the subsequent ascending node of the orbit leads over the western part of Australia, Borneo and the eastern part of Asia.
Credits: EUMETSAT | |  |  | |
| | | | | Level-1 products from AVHRR (visible channels only). The AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) on board MetOp scans the Earth's surface in six spectral bands to provide day and night imaging of land, water and clouds. It also measures sea-surface temperature, ice, snow and vegetation cover.
Credits: EUMETSAT | | | | |
| | | | | Carried on MetOp, the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) is a compact five-channel microwave radiometer that scans through the atmosphere to measure upwelling microwave radiation from the Earth at specific frequency bands. Since humidity in the atmosphere attenuate microwave radiation emitted from the surface of the Earth, it is possible, from the observations made by MHS, to derive a detailed picture of atmospheric humidity where the different channels relate to different altitudes. Temperature at the surface of the Earth can also be determined.
Credits: ESA - AOES Medialab | | | | |
| | | | | The first GOME-2 Earthshine spectra were acquired on 30 October 2006 after the completion of initial functional testing. The plot shos an un-calibrated Earthshine spectrum in binary units (BU).
Credits: EUMETSAT | | | | |
| | | | | | Underneath the thermal insulation cover there is a complex set of telescopes and prisms through which incoming light is initially separated into four main bandwidths. Different gases in the atmosphere absorb different wavelengths of light. The GOME-2 spectrometer is used to split the light into different wavelengths to reveal absorption lines, which correspond to certain gases present the observed sample. GOME-2 covers the 240-790 nm wavelength regions, i.e. wavelengths covering ultraviolet and visible light.
On the side of the GOME-2 instrument that faces the Earth, a mirror, which scans a swath on the surface of the Earth 1920 kilometres x 40 kilometres, directs light reflected from the Earth's atmosphere into a telescope. Behind the entrance slit, the light is bounced around by a number of mirrors before being directed through a quartz prism. The prism separates the light into four bands (red, green, blue and ultraviolet). These four beams are then split further by 'holographic gratings' to resolve the light to 0.5 nm wavelengths and better.
The three large boxes shown in the animation house the scan mirror and electronics; the one at the bottom left of the image holds the scan mirror, the one in mid-right holds the power lines, and the larger one to the back-right holds the data control unit where the data is prepared and downlinked to the ground stations.
Periodically, the scan mirror is pointed towards the black box on the right for calibration purposes; here light is picked up directly from the Sun and used as a reference.
Credits: ESA - AOES Medialab | | | | |
| | | | | Developed by ESA for Eumetsat, MetOp-A is the first in a series of three Eumetsat Polar System (EPS) satellites.
MetOp-A was launched on 19 October 2006 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab | | | | |
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| | MetOp Story in pictures Special features  MetOp-A launchLaunch highlightsRelated articles First instrument aboard MetOp-A successfully switched onEurope’s new MetOp weather satellite reaches polar orbitMeasuring humidity with MHSMonitoring ozone with GOME-2In depth Space Operations & Situational AwarenessSoyuz launch vehicleBaikonurRelated links EUMETSATEADS-AstriumStarsemNOAACNES
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