Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first weather satellite, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The first image from the satellite, known as TIROS-1 (Television Infrared Observation Satellite), was a fuzzy picture of thick bands and clusters of clouds over the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. An image captured a few days later revealed a typhoon about a 1,000 miles east of Australia.
The first satellite lasted only 78 days, but by 1965 meteorologists were combining satellite images to create the first global images of the world’s weather.