The Webb Space Telescope was launched from Europe’s Spaceport — located about 40 miles northwest of Kourou, French Guyana (station identifier SOCA) at 1220 UTC on 25 December 2021. A sequence of 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) images from all 16 ABI spectral bands (above) showed one or both of two features: (1) the hot thermal signature of the Ariane 5 solid rocket booster and core engines, moving rapidly eastward, and (2) the reflective and/or colder signature of the rocket engine condensation cloud, most of which moved slowly northward away from the coast. 

At 1221 UTC, a cluster of warm pixels — a signature of the rocket engines — was evident in all Near-Infrared and Infrared ABI spectral bands (below).

A closer view of GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (below) showed the motion and deformation of the rocket condensation cloud in greater detail. Changes in wind direction and speed with height tended to distort the shape of the condensation cloud, moving it in different directions. Another view of this rocket condensation cloud is available here, using CSPP GeoSphere.

The Plume RGB (below) is very useful for providing a single product to highlight all of the aforementioned rocket launch features (a shorter-duration animation is available here). Examples of the Plume RGB for other rocket launches can be seen in this blog post .

The ascending rocket plume was also seen on the extreme eastern limb of a GOES-17 (GOES-West) Visible image (below). Wind-induced distortion of the ascending rocket plume was evident in that view as well.

Congratulations to the entire @NASAWebb team on today's successful launch! Our Advanced Baseline Imager on @NOAASatellites' #GOESWest captured the launch. #JWST #GOES17 #UnfoldTheUniverse #L3Harris

?: NOAA/NASA pic.twitter.com/IQnjl07tUq

— L3Harris (@L3HarrisTech) December 25, 2021

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An explosion and fire occurred at the ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown, Texas around 12:50 AM (0650 UTC) on 23 December 2021 — and a comparison of GOES-17 (GOES-West) vs GOES-16 (GOES-East) Near-Infrared (1.61 µm and 2.24µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9µm) images (above) displayed the thermal signature of the fire. The maximum 3.9 µm infrared brightness temperature sensed by GOES-16 was 343.02 K (compared to 337.82 K by GOES-17).

GOES-16 (above) and GOES-17 (below) Plume RGB images created using Geo2Grid also helped to highlight the thermal signature of the fire (red pixels).

In a time-matched comparison of Shortwave Infrared images from GOES-16 and Suomi-NPP about 1.5 hours after the initial refinery explosion (below), the GOES-16 thermal signature was beginning to diminish (exhibiting an infrared brightness temperature of 14.7ºC) while the higher spatial resolution Suomi-NPP VIIRS shortwave infrared brightness temperature was notably warmer at 26.2ºC.

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Recent rocket launches as seen by NOAA‘s GOES ABI. More on the multi-spectral ‘rocket plume’ RGB: quick guide and CIMSS Satellite Blog post. Or this post on seeing the Landsat launch.

December 21, 2021 from Kennedy Space Center

#ICYMI: This morning at 5:07am ET, @SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 39A to begin its journey to deliver cargo & holiday treats to the @Space_Station.

Dragon will arrive tomorrow, Dec. 22 at ~4:30am ET. Coverage begins at 3am ET: https://t.co/KGdMz6kWsn pic.twitter.com/trSWURke2J

— NASA's Kennedy Space Center (@NASAKennedy) December 21, 2021

December 19, 2021 from Kennedy Space Center

Also from Cape Canaveral, but right on the edge of the meso-scale sector! (and as an animated gif).

#SpaceX is targeting Saturday, December 18 for launch of the #Turksat 5B mission to geostationary transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The 90-minute launch window opens at 10:58 p.m. EST, or 3:58 UTC on December 19 pic.twitter.com/OqlI6yvDy8

— SpaceX Tracker (@spacextracker) December 18, 2021

December 18, 2021 from Vandenberg Space Force Base

A view from GOES-17 (animated gif), note more striping due to increased instrument noise.

Did you see the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg SFB early this morning? Did you know that our geostationary satellites can "see" them too? Check it out, #GOES17 picked up on an intense heat signature from its liftoff at 442am PST/1242 UTC! ???? #CAwx #rocket #nerdtweet pic.twitter.com/GPdYkYSDZc

— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) December 18, 2021

H/T

NOAA GOES-16 and -17 ABI data are via the University of Wisconsin-Madison SSEC Satellite Data Services. These images were made using the geo2grid software, developed at the UW/SSEC. More GOES-16 and -17 imagery and other information, including the SIFT software developed at UW/SSEC to quickly test RGB changes.

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By animating daily NOAA GOES-16 ABI Full Disk true color imagery, how the Earth is illuminated over time can be seen. For example, the minimum in incoming solar radiation in the Northern Hemisphere associated with the Winter Solstice. For details, see “What is a Solstice?” by SciJinks. Or this NOAA https://www.noaa.gov/education/news/share-your-solstice-sunset-with-noaa-education post.

11 UTC loops of 2021 (so far): durations of 9 and 18 seconds. Also as an animated gif. These posted GOES-16 Full Disk imagery are only showing a small number of the pixels, for a fuller resolution image at one time (20-June-2021).

Interactive web page

An interactive web page with almost a years worth of GOES ABI Full Disk visible images at 11 UTC. The beginning date is the (northern hemisphere) summer solstice in 2021 and the end date is the winter solstice in 2021. A user can play the animation, as well as annotate the images. For example, draw lines along the terminator for different times of the year. One example might be to compare a solstice to an equinox. Can you estimate the day of the summery equinox? H/T Tom Whittaker, SSEC, for the webapp. Note that the app allows one to save an mp4 animation.

H/T

These images were made using NOAA data with geo2grid, from UW-Madison, SSEC.

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