First Sunlit Earth

Awe-inspiring.

A NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite has returned its first view of the entire sunlit side of Earth from one million miles away.

The color images of Earth from NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) are generated by combining three separate images to create a photographic-quality image. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters — from ultraviolet to near infrared — to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used in these Earth images.

Reminiscent of the The Blue Marble which is the famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles)

The geographer in me thinks it is always worth noting that the original image/perspective of the three astronauts, Harrison H. Schmitt, Eugene A. Cernan and Ron Evans when the photo was taken,was with the earth-view decidedly “down-under” in orientation!

Links:

• Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR)
• NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC)
• Apollo 17 Image Library