December Image of the Month: First look at NPP VIIRS data

Last week we got our first peek at data from the new Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the recently launched NPP satellite.  According to the NASA announcement, the NPP Team at the Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, created the image shown here, using the red, green and blue VIIRS channels.  The full scene shows eastern North America from Hudson Bay to the northern coast of Venezuela.  The image is being evaluated by the science community, and we should hear more soon about what they conclude regarding VIIRS’s performance and accuracy.  For now, we’ll can only say that things are looking good for the future of VIIRS.  It’s a beautiful image.

The first image from the VIIRS sensor aboard the NPP satellite. The image was acquired November 21, 2011. The original data were processed at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility.