GOES-East satellite displaying infrared imagery of Hurricane Ida.
POES satellite displaying visible imagery of Super Typhoon Man-Yi
High orbit
Earth-orbiting
One orbit takes 24 hours
Appears stationary in the sky as seen by a ground-based observer
Low orbit
Passes above or nearly above both poles
Circular orbits
Follows the path of the sun
Placed approximately 35,800 km (22,300 mi) vertically
Directly over the equator
Revolves in the same direction the Earth rotates (west to east)
Can see approximately 40% of the Earth's surface
As it is at a greater height, it covers a large geographical area
High temporal resolution data
Provides poor coverage at higher latitude places usually greater than 77 degrees
Due to the high orbit, the spatial resolution of the data is not as great
https://weather.rap.ucar.edu/satellite/
Click "Contiguous U.S." at the top
Placed in circular sun-synchronous (see below) orbits
Orbital periods of 98 to 110 minutes
Data is never more than 6 hours old
Equals about 14 orbits/day
Since these are closer to the Earth, they have a higher spatial resolution
Excellent views of the polar regions
Not always above the same location continuously
continuous monitoring is not possible
Cannot see the whole surface of the Earth at any one time
MODIS Satellite: https://ge.ssec.wisc.edu/modis-today/
NASA Worldview: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/