University of Wisconsin–Madison

PREFIRE First Light Announcement!

03 Sep 2024 | Tim Michaels

First Light
From a still frame of the PREFIRE first light video, showing a visualization of some PREFIRE-SAT2 data captured in July 2024. The colored strips are the brightness temperatures (a measure of the intensity of infrared emissions) measured along the CubeSat’s orbit swaths. Red indicates intense infrared emissions from Earth, while blue/purple indicates less-intense infrared emissions.
Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

NASA has publicly released the first look at PREFIRE mission data, also known as the first light announcement!

The PREFIRE science team worked with NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio to create this first light video. It showcases some of the fascinating infrared details of the Arctic surface and atmosphere that PREFIRE-SAT2 captured in July 2024. The visualization begins by showing mid-infrared emission intensity data (in this case, at wavelengths near 9.29 micrometers) taken in early July during multiple orbits. Zooming in on two passes over Greenland, the orbital tracks expand vertically to show how far-infrared emission intensities (at wavelengths greater than 15 micrometers) vary through the atmosphere. Finally, it focuses on the area where the two passes intersect, showing how the intensity of far-infrared emissions changed over the nine hours between these two orbits.

The PREFIRE science team is hard at work analyzing the countless measurements – of the infrared energy being emitted by Earth’s polar regions – that the twin CubeSats are radioing to the ground every day!

This work is supported by NASA.