NASA released an ‘epic’ shot of Earth this week.
The image was captured by the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite (DSCOVR), which is maintaining real-time solar wind monitoring for us back on Earth. It is the first shot of the “entire sunlit side” of our planet from a million miles away, NASA said in a statement.
Taken July 6, the photo shows most of the Western Hemisphere and was captured by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera, or EPIC, which is a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope. They report that they combined three separate images to come up with this one, the first of many to come from EPIC. NASA says they will take a series of images that will be posted to a web page by September.
Want more space? Time posted the first two episodes in a Web-only documentary following Scott Kelly as he trains and prepares for his mission on the International Space Station called “A Year in Space.” Sponsored by Boeing, the 10-episode series launched in early July, and Time will continue to unveil new episodes over the life of the mission, hopefully giving space fans some more epic views of Earth.
Watch the trailer below:
