Groundbreaking new sensor transforms how Europe tracks pollution, smoke and cloud from space

Air pollution remains the leading environmental health risk in Europe, with exposure to fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone linked to more than 350,000 premature deaths across European Union countries in 2022. A powerful new European satellite instrument has now returned its first images from space, offering a new window into the atmosphere and the particles that influence our health, weather and climate.

On the opening day of the 30th edition of the EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference, experts revealed the first images from the Multi-Viewing, Multi-Channel, Multi-Polarisation Imager (3MI), which is designed to observe multiple signatures of the Earth’s atmosphere at once. When operational, the data streams from 3MI will support more accurate forecasts, better air quality and climate monitoring, and improved public health protection across Europe and beyond.

3MI, which sits on board the recently launched Metop Second Generation A1 (Metop-SGA1) satellite, began capturing images on 28 August 2025, just over two weeks after the launch of the satellite. The first images reveal fine atmospheric features with remarkable precision, including smoke from devastating wildfires in Southern Europe, and stunning rainbow cloud structures over Peru and Chile.

3MI is the result of more than 15 years of collaborative work by EUMETSAT, the European Space Agency, Leonardo, Airbus Defence and Space, and an international network of partners. It is Europe’s first operational polarimeter in space and one of only a few worldwide, building on the legacy of the Polarisation and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances (POLDER) instrument – a mission led by the French space agency (CNES), which demonstrated how polarised light could provide valuable insights into atmospheric particles such as smoke, dust and salt, as well as clouds structures.