MODIS/Terra Raw Radiances: L1A Swath Data for 36 Spectral Bands

MODIS/Terra Raw Radiances in Counts contains reformatted, packetized instrument data for all 36 MODIS spectral bands at 250 m, 500 m, or 1 km resolutions. This Level-1A product from NASA includes quality indicators for missing pixels and instrument modes, with specific bands (20-36) used for night-time thermal infrared measurements. The data is packaged into 5-minute granules for geolocation and calibration processes.

Use Cases

• Calibrating satellite instrument readings based on raw detector counts and engineering data.
• Developing algorithms for day/night land surface temperature retrieval based on thermal infrared bands.
• Analyzing atmospheric composition using spectral radiance data from visible and infrared bands.
• Quality control and flagging of satellite imagery based on the provided quality indicators for missing or bad pixels.

Strengths

• Contains raw data for all 36 MODIS spectral bands across visible, NIR, SWIR, and TIR wavelengths.
• Includes data from all detector views: Earth, solar diffuser, SRCA, black body, and space view.
• Provides specific spatial resolutions of 250 m, 500 m, and 1 km.
• Distinguishes between day mode (all bands) and night mode (bands 20-36) operations.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), MODIS Characterization Support Team (MCST)

Collection Method

Satellite instrument data from the MODIS sensor on the Terra platform, reformatted and packaged into granules.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 20:20:33.745094; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global swath coverage from the Terra satellite orbit.