This reduced resolution (1200 metre) image shows Hurricane Isabel off the US East Coast, acquired by MERIS on board ESA’s Envisat spacecraft at 14.58 UTC on 17 September 2003. Envisat is ESA’s latest Earth Observation satellite, launched February 2002. Its orbit is a half hour ahead but otherwise identical to that of ERS-2, whose scatterometer also acquired useful meteorological measurements of the hurricane’s heart.