Day & Night Eumetsat Europe Animated Satellite Image - 24 Hours
Here you can see the Eumetsat infrared day and night satellite picture.
The thermal radiation of the earth and clouds is used to track weather development 24 hours a day.
The brighter the clouds, the higher they reach into colder layers of the atmosphere.
Weather satellites observe cloud formations from outer space.
There are polar revolving satellites from NOAA and EUMETSAT Metop, which rotate around the earth at low height
However they only fly over an area of the earth twice a day, so no constant weather observation is possible.
Here you can see pictures from weather satellites in geostationary orbit at a height of approx. 36,000 km.
These satellites take exactly 24 hours to orbit the earth, so are located over the same point of the earth at all times.
The pictures (from MSG Meteosat Second Generation) shown here are being transmitted to earth every 15 minutes.