In 1977, the first Meteosat satellite took its place in geostationary orbit and laid the foundations for the European and world cooperation in meteorology that continues today.

Building on the success of both the first Meteosat generation and the subsequent Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) series, the first satellite of the third generation, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager-1 (MTG-I1), was launched on 13 December 2022.

This animation shows the first images of Earth captured by the Meteosat satellites ranging from 9 December 1977 (Meteosat-1) all the way to the first image from MTG-I1 acquired on 18 March 2023.