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In the field of remote sensing, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is a sensor that collects visible and near-infrared light to measure land, ocean, and atmospheric properties. The VIIRS instrument flies on board the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite, which was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on October 28, 2011. The primary objective of the Suomi NPP mission is to collect data used for weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and other environmental applications.
The VIIRS instrument has 22 bands spanning wavelengths from 0.412 to 12.01 micrometers. This includes two new spectral bands near 1.6 micrometers that are sensitive to aerosmated fires not detectable by previous generation sensors such as MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer). Data from these new fire bands will be used to map global burned areas with greater accuracy than ever before possible.
Additionally, VIIRS also has improved spatial resolution compared to older instruments like MODIS; its pixel size is 375 meters at nadir compared to MODIS’s one kilometer pixels. This increased resolution allows for more detailed mapping of features like vegetation type and topography. Finally, VIIRS incorporates a day–night band (DNB), which uses low-light imaging technology originally developed for military night vision applications to detect dim light sources such as city lights, wildfires at night, auroras, and airglow.”