Global map of ozone, captured by Sentinel-5 on 13 October 2025. Ozone plays a dual role in Earth’s atmosphere: While stratospheric ozone shields life from harmful UV radiation, ground-level ozone is a harmful air pollutant that affects human health and ecosystems.

Image of the week: A new view of global ozone from space

 

Watching our Earth from 36,000km

Global map of ozone, captured by Sentinel-5 on 13 October 2025. Ozone plays a dual role in Earth’s atmosphere: While stratospheric ozone shields life from harmful UV radiation, ground-level ozone is a harmful air pollutant that affects human health and ecosystems.
Global map of ozone, captured by Sentinel-5 on 13 October 2025. Ozone plays a dual role in Earth’s atmosphere: While stratospheric ozone shields life from harmful UV radiation, ground-level ozone is a harmful air pollutant that affects human health and ecosystems.

This week’s image of the week is of global ozone as captured by the new Sentinel-5 instrument mission, which is onboard EUMETSAT’s polar-orbitting Metop-SGA1 satellite.

Last Updated

07 January 2026

Published on

27 November 2025

Copernicus Sentinel-5 will monitor air quality, trace gases and aerosols at high spatial resolution with daily global coverage. It will work together with other advanced instruments on Metop-SGA1 — including IASI-NG, METimage, and 3MI — to deliver an unparalleled view of Earth’s atmosphere. The Metop-SGA1 satellite was launched in August 2025.

The image shows a map of global ozone(O₃)and the hole in stratospheric ozone above Antarctica can be seen with lower column density values (dark blue colour). Stratospheric ozone is a protective layer in the atmosphere that shields life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

Sentinel-5 observations will be integrated into products from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) to provide important insights on trace gases and pollutant concentrations worldwide.

Global map of ozone, captured by Sentinel-5 on 13 October 2025. Ozone plays a dual role in Earth’s atmosphere: While stratospheric ozone shields life from harmful UV radiation, ground-level ozone is a harmful air pollutant that affects human health and ecosystems.

Global ozone image

This data image was captured by the Sentinel-5 Ultraviolet Visible Near-infrared Short-wave infrared (UVNS) spectrometer onboard Metop-SGA1.

More info

What is the current state of the ozone layer?

EUMETSAT's Metop-SG satellites and instruments

The Copernicus Programme and Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service

Daily views of ozone from Metop-B and -C

View atmosphere data from the AC SAF

Access atmosphere data via EUMETSAT user portal

Visualise weather and atmosphere data with EUMETView

Global map of ozone, captured by Sentinel-5 on 13 October 2025. Ozone plays a dual role in Earth’s atmosphere: While stratospheric ozone shields life from harmful UV radiation, ground-level ozone is a harmful air pollutant that affects human health and ecosystems.

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