The image of clouds over the United States was taken on April 3, 1974, by an Applications Technology Satellite 3 (ATS 3), which was launched on November 5, 1967. The ATS series was a set of six NASA spacecraft created to explore and flight-test new technologies and techniques for communications, meteorological and navigation satellites.
The image of clouds over Ohio was taken on March 2, 1999, by GOES-8, a Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. GOES-8, the first of a series of five state-of-the-art environmental satellites, was launched on April 4, 1994. It overlooks the central and eastern parts of the United States and well out into the Atlantic Ocean. GOES images are available on the World Wide Web at: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/