Here's the first installment in a new series at ImaGeo: dazzling imagery from the new GOES-16 weather satellite

An animation of images from the new GOES-16 weather satellite shows the progression of a day for 12 hours starting on April 21, 2017. (Source: CIRA/RAMMB/NOAA) With Earth Day just behind us, I've been inspired to start a new series here at ImaGeo: semi-regular posts showcasing the truly dazzling imagery now being produced by the GOES-16 weather satellite. It's now on its shakedown cruise, so to speak. Scientists are still testing everything out and evaluating the data being returned by the satellite. So it is not yet officially operational. Even so, just have a look at the animation above, and the others below, and I think you'll agree that GOES-16 seems to be experiencing smooth sailing so far. (Although I'm guessing that the engineers working behind the scenes might take issue with that!) The animation up top shows the full disk of the Western Hemisphere, starting at 8 a.m. EDT. At this point, the Earth's terminator — the fuzzy edge between day and night — is located roughly through the mid-section of the lower 48 states. Dawn then progresses to the west in one-hour intervals until the entire disk is illuminated by the Sun. The terminator quickly returns on the right, bringing nighttime with it. The animation ends 12 hours after it begins, at 8 p.m. EDT. The Advanced Baseline Imager, or ABI, is the primary instrument on GOES-16, and it is far more capable than the current imagers found on the operational GOES-East and GOES-West satellites. It can create an image of Earth's full disk in just 5 to 15 minutes, compared to every three hours for the current satellites.