MODIS has 36 channels which sense reflected and emitted energy from the Earth and its atmosphere in the visible and infrared portion of the spectrum. The first seven channels are sensitive to solar radiation reflected from the Earth and its atmosphere.
The NOAA AVHRR instrument has a couple of these channels and the GOES Imager has one broad-band visible channel, however, both of these instruments provide coarser (1 km) resolution. The MODIS visible channels have a spatial resolution down to 250m and allows for very detailed viewing of surface and atmospheric features.
