64th anniversary of the first image from a meteorological satellite
TIROS-1 visible image
Today marks the 64th anniversary of the first image from the meteorological satellite TIROS-1, which was available on 01 April 1960. While TIROS-1 was only operational for 78 days, it provided a number of images of the Earth and cloud systems (including the first image of a tropical cyclone, over the South Pacific Ocean on 10 April 1960).
However, this information suggests that the TIROS-1 image shown above — which has gained notoriety as being the first — was actually taken at 1608 UTC on 02 April 1960! Apparently the true “first image” from TIROS-1 was taken at 1331 UTC on 01 April 1960, which is shown below (courtesy of Rick Kohrs, SSEC).
The actual first TIROS-1 image (taken at 1331 UTC on 01 April 1960)