Flown onboard Terra (formerly called EOS AM-1).

Applications: land use/land cover; environmental monitoring; climatology; geology; oceanography; ice and snow cover; coastal studies; soils.

MODIS has 36 spectral bands, each with its own particular application (i.e., land/cloud/aerosol boundaries; ocean color/phytoplankton/biogeochemistry; atmospheric water vapor; surface/cloud temperature; atmospheric temperature; cirrus clouds water vapor; cloud properties; ozone; cloud top altitude); pixel size ranges from 250 m to 1000 m.

More information: http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/

"This is a composite MODIS image showing the 'green wave' of spring in North America and sea surface temperature in the ocean, collected over an 8-day period during the first week in April 2000. On land, the darker green pixels show where the most green foliage is being produced due to photosynthetic activity. Yellows on land show where there is little or no productivity and red is a boundary zone. In the ocean, orange and yellows show warmer waters and blues show colder values." -- MODIS Science Team (source: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov)