NASA’s New Lightning Satellite Just Captured Some Terrifyingly Wild Footage

The archetypal imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s newest space-based lightning tracking instrumentality has been released, and it’s a doozy. The upwind outer GOES-19 began investigating retired its Geostationary Lightning Mapper instrumentality conscionable arsenic 2 consecutive almighty hurricanes battered portions of the United States.

The latest summation to the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite family, GOES-19, is designed to, successful part, show each forms of lightning. While you mightiness beryllium astir acquainted with cloud-to-ground lightning, different types of lightning are confined to the sky. As hurricanes Helene and Milton formed, NOAA and its spouse agency, NASA, were capable to ticker it hap acknowledgment to the GLM successful unprecedented item and precision. In a statement, NOAA said aboriginal information collected by GOES-19 could beryllium captious successful processing caller models of tempest investigation and prediction, and could besides play a large relation successful helping illustration safer paths for airplanes arsenic aboriginal storms form, peculiarly implicit portions of the oceans that deficiency radar coverage.

In opposition to the devastation connected the ground, the imagery from abstraction is jarringly beautiful. While footage of some hurricanes showed lightning sparking similar fireflies crossed the tempest clouds, it besides shows however the storms formed successful antithetic ways. Images from September 24 amusement respective thunderstorms converging into Hurricane Helene, which made landfall 2 days later, pummeling six states. In contrast, arsenic Milton began forming, intense, continuous eyewall lightning tin beryllium seen successful the storm’s core. The tempest yet became a Category 5 hurricane that did large harm crossed Florida.

In a statement, NOAA said the imagery and information collected truthful acold is preliminary. The satellite, launched connected a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket successful June, is presently successful post-launch testing—a signifier wherever its instruments and systems are readied for afloat operation.

The 4th and last outer successful a bid that began launching successful 2016, it’s designed to show terrible rainfall and snowstorms, wildfires, floods, lightning, dense fog, and different upwind events. Once it’s afloat operational, which NOAA said should hap successful April 2025, it volition regenerate its predecessor GOES-16 arsenic GOES-East. The sanction is somewhat confusing, since the outer is successful orbit implicit the occidental hemisphere, but it’s each relative. GOES-East orbits implicit the 75th Meridian West, which is eastbound of GOES-West’s orbit implicit the 132nd Meridian West. Smack dab betwixt the 2 is the 100th Meridian, wherever the large plains begin. See? It each makes sense.

As gorgeous arsenic the imagery from GOES-19 is, there’s much precocious upwind imaging connected the horizon. NASA and NOAA are teaming up 1 much to make the adjacent procreation of monitoring satellites, which they’re calling the Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) system. Those volition beryllium equipped with adjacent much precocious instruments to ticker and representation lightning, arsenic good arsenic way aerial quality, utmost upwind events, water algae blooms, h2o quality, lipid spills, and a slew of different perchance hazardous phenomena. GeoXO is presently scheduled to statesman operations sometime successful the aboriginal 2030s.