NOAA Celebrates 50 Years of GOES Satellites @NOAASatellites

Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago

In 2025, NOAA celebrates 50 years of its heralded Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite program, known as GOES. For five decades, NOAA and NASA have partnered to advance NOAA satellite observations from geostationary orbit. GOES are our sentinels in the sky: keeping constant watch for severe weather and environmental hazards on Earth and dangerous space weather.

As NOAA celebrates the long legacy of the GOES, we continue to rely on these satellites for short-term forecasts of hazardous weather, detection and monitoring of environmental phenomena like wildfires, smoke, volcanic ash, dust storms and fog, and warnings of approaching space weather that can disrupt communication and navigation systems, disrupt power grids, damage satellites in space and expose astronauts to harmful radiation.

Learn more:
nesdis.noaa.gov/goes-50

NOAA Celebrates 50 Years of GOES Satellites

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$Earth from Orbit: Vernal Equinox Spring has officially sprung here in the Northern Hemisphere—while in the Southern Hemisphere, autumn has begun! The vernal equinox—the official start of astronomical spring—occurred on Sunday, March 20, 2022 at 11:33 a.m. EDT. There are only two times of the year when the Earths axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in a nearly equal amount of daylight and darkness at all latitudes.These events are referred to as equinoxes and occur in the spring (vernal) and fall (autumnal). The word “equinox” is derived from two Latin words—aequus (equal) and nox (night). At the equator, the sun is directly overhead at noon on these two equinoxes. The nearly equal hours of day and night is due to refraction of sunlight, or a bending of the lights rays that causes the sun to appear above the horizon when the actual position of the sun is below the horizon. Additionally, the days become a little longer at higher latitudes farther from the equator, because it takes the sun longer to rise and set. The seasons change at various times of the year due to the planet’s axial tilt of 23.5 degrees as it orbits the sun. This tilt means the two hemispheres are exposed to different sun angles and variable lengths of daylight throughout the year. The equinoxes are the only two times a year that the sun rises exactly due east and sets due west for nearly every place on Earth. While astronomical spring began on March 20, meteorological spring began on March 1. Astronomical seasons are based on the position of the Earth in relation to the sun, while meteorological seasons are based on the annual temperature cycle. Meteorological seasons begin on the first day of the months that include the equinoxes and solstices.Thus, meteorological spring began on March 1 and will end on May 31. Astronomical spring will officially end, and astronomical summer will begin, on the summer solstice on Tuesday, June 21 at 5:13 a.m. EDT. From their position 22,236 miles above the equator, NOAA’s GOES-16 and GOES-17 satellites orbit at the same rate Earth rotates, so they can keep constant watch over the same region. This allows them to view the terminator—the edge between the shadows of nightfall and the sunlight of dusk and dawn—as it moves across the Western Hemisphere.The slope of the terminator curve changes with the seasons. During an equinox, the terminator is a straight north-south line over the equator. Throughout the year, NOAA satellites observe this marker of seasonal change. * * Credits: NOAA NASA Goddard Space Flight Center CIRA Music: “Sylvan Light,” by Andy Blythe [PRS] & Marten Joustra [PRS]; Flexitracks; Universal Production Music$

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