"Today's Image" of the Earth's surface depicts heavy rainfall area in light yellow, less atmospheric humidity and cloudy areas in light blue, and heavy atmospheric humidity and cloudy areas in dark blue.

The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) monitors the microwaves (wavelength 1cm to 1m) that radiate from the Earth's surface. Monitoring the microwaves will help us study various global changes, such as rainfall intensity, atmospheric humidity, sea-ice parameters, sea-surface wind velocity, snow depth, soil moisture, and sea-surface temperatures.

This image is provided by the AMSR-E instrument carried on board NASA's Earth-observing satellite Aqua. The Japanese satellite MIDORI-II, also known as the Advanced Earth-Observing Satellite-II, carries the same instrument, but it is called the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR). AMSR-E and AMSR microwave sensors were both developed in Japan.