Saturday, February 13, 1965: Tiros-9

The Tiros-9 satellite (also known as Tiros IX) produces the first photomosaic of the world's cloud cover.

Caption: This global photomosaic was assembled from 450 individual pictures taken by Tiros IX during the 24 hours of February 13, 1965. The horizontal white line marks the equator. Special photographic processing was used to increase the contrast between major land areas, outlined in white, and the surrounding oceans. The brightest features on the photographs are clouds; ice in the Antarctic, and snow in the north are also very bright. The clouds are associated with many different types of weather patterns. The scalloping at the bottom shows how the Earth's horizon appears in individual pictures.

(Photo from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; link to larger image: @)

* "U.S. Has Big Wheel Satellite In Orbit" (Associated Press, January 22): @

* NASA summary of Tiros-9: @

* NASA summaries of all Tiros missions: @

* Tiros-9 summary (Florida State University): @

* "Catalogue of Meteorological Satellite Data -- Tiros IX" (Environmental Science Services Administration): @ and @

* "Observation of the Earth and Its Environment: Survey of Missions and Sensors" (Herbert J. Kramer, 2002): @

* "Earth Observations from Space" (National Academy of Sciences): @

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