Full Earth disc

First image of the full Earth disc from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager. The first image from Meteosat Third Generation – Imager 1 (MTG-I1) reveals a level of detail about the weather over Europe and Africa not previously possible from 36 000 km above Earth. The higher-resolution images provided by the instruments on board give weather forecasters more information about the clouds cloaking much of Europe and visible in the equatorial region of Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. Sand and sediment in the waters off Italy are also visible, as well as dust or smog being carried from south Asia. This degree of detail is not possible from the instruments on the Meteosat Second Generation satellites. The image was captured at 11:50 UTC on 18 March 2023 by the Flexible Combined Imager on MTG-I1.

Read full story: New weather satellite reveals spectacular images of Earth