GOME may spend up to half a minute in each orbit examining the sunshine. It thus avoids elaborate calibration procedures required in earlier spaceborne instruments. A narrower swath can show detail down to 80 kilometres, but then GOME takes longer to cover the whole Earth. Molecules absorbing a particular wavelength may lie anywhere between the Earth's surface and the top of the atmosphere. Scientists need to deduce how ozone and other agents are distributed at different heights.
Longer wavelengths can see deeper into the atmosphere than shorter wavelengths.
Comparisons of the absorption signals of the same molecule in GOME's different wavebands give an impression of the agent's distribution by height. Clouds help too. The clouds also hide low-lying oxygen. The reduced absorption by oxygen enables GOME scientists to judge the clouds' extent and height and so tell how far down into the atmosphere the satellite is looking, at each place. Scientists use many instruments to detect ozone and other ingredients of the atmosphere.