Satellite MSG - 1 - Meteosat 8 - Artist's view of the European satellite MSG...

Satellite MSG - 1 - Meteosat 8 - Artist's view of the European satellite MSG - 1 (Meteosat Second Generation) or Meteosat 8, in orbit around the Earth. Launched on August 28, 2002, it is a geostationary satellite located 35 600 km from Earth; dedicated to meteorology, it observes the Earth in visible, and in infrared. Meteosat Second Generation (MSG), is equipped with an extremely sophisticated imaging radiometer that can separate the incoming radiation into 12 (3 with the current Meteosat) different spectral bands. Each section, four of them in the visible and eight in the thermal infrared, delivers different information. They vary from visible images of weather systems during the day to cloud temperature at night; from surface temperature and water vapour to trace gas concentrations and dust particles in the atmosphere. MSG will deliver about twenty times as much information as its predecessor Meteosat, resulting in much more accurate short and medium - range forecasts