Cloudsat

active Mission
an illustration of the Cloudsat spacecraft in orbit around Earth

CloudSat was designed to provide observations to advance our understanding of cloud abundance, distribution, structure, and radiative properties.

Type

Orbiter

Launch

April 28, 2006

Target

Earth

Objective

Observe Earth's clouds
Learn more about Cloudsat

CloudSat Stories

Explore All CloudSat Stories
Article
6 min read

NASA’s CloudSat Ends Mission Peering Into the Heart of Clouds

Article
6 min read

NASA Satellites Show How Clouds Respond to Arctic Sea Ice Change

5 min read

A Machine-Learning Assist to Predicting Hurricane Intensity

Article4 years ago
2 min read

NASA’S Cloudsat And Calipso Launch Rescheduled

News Release
2 min read

Weather Again Scrubs NASA’s CloudSat and CALIPSO Launch

News Release
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NASA/JPL-Caltech/VTAD
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The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The stars vary in color, the majority of which have a blue or orange hue. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys – an appearance very similar to a mountain range. Three long diffraction spikes from the top right edge of the image suggest the presence of a large star just out of view.

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