The first image snapped from the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite

NASA’s most-recently launched satellite is sending images of the planet back to Earth now, and the first image taken includes Wisconsin. 

The Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (also known as VIIRS) snapped an incredible photo that, in the same frame, includes everything south of Canada’s Hudson Bay and north of the Venezuelan coast of South America. 

The images are part of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) that was launched from California in late October. 

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the satellite revolves 512 miles above the Earth and is moving quite quickly–16,640 miles an hour!

NOAA hopes to learn more about changes in Earth’s climate with the satellite. 

To take a look at the image in great detail, check this link from NOAA: http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news_archives/first_viirs_images.html