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.
"This first DSCOVR image of our planet demonstrates the unique and important benefits of Earth observation from space,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. “As a former astronaut who’s been privileged to view the Earth from orbit, I want everyone to be able to see and appreciate our planet as an integrated, interacting system. DSCOVR’s observations of Earth, as well as its measurements and early warnings of space weather events caused by the sun, will help every person to monitor the ever-changing Earth, and to understand how our planet fits into its neighborhood in the solar system.”
These initial Earth images show the effects of sunlight scattered by air molecules, giving the images a characteristic bluish tint. The EPIC team now is working on a rendering of these images that emphasizes land features and removes this atmospheric effect. Once the instrument begins regular data acquisition, new images will be available every day, 12 to 36 hours after they are acquired by EPIC. These images will be posted to a dedicated web page by September. ...
Attachments
Earth as seen on July 6, 2015 from a distance of one million miles by a NASA scientific camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory spacecraft. (Credits: NASA)
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
That's really cool. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Earlier this year I tried to create a simulated view of that. It's nice to have some reference. Earth's land blends in a lot more with the ocean than I'd expect. The moon really seems similarly bright as the ocean, too. And Earth's limb fades into a bit grayer shade of blue than the neon colors we often see in depictions. It's really nuts that we have been relying on old Apollo imagery for a reference point for so long. Earth is so familiar that most people probably won't even see these images as being brand new and unlike any we have seen before.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.
geckzilla wrote:That's really cool. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Earlier this year I tried to create a simulated view of that. It's nice to have some reference. Earth's land blends in a lot more with the ocean than I'd expect. The moon really seems similarly bright as the ocean, too. And Earth's limb fades into a bit grayer shade of blue than the neon colors we often see in depictions. It's really nuts that we have been relying on old Apollo imagery for a reference point for so long. Earth is so familiar that most people probably won't even see these images as being brand new and unlike any we have seen before.
The albedo of the Moon and of the ocean is similar. In this image, however, the Moon probably appears somewhat brighter than its albedo would suggest because with the Sun almost directly behind the camera, there will be a strong opposition effect.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
After the Moon has passed, there is a somewhat bright, relatively colorless (gray), rather large and diffuse spot which seems to move across the ocean of the Earth (the Pacific, I think).
Is that a reflection of the Sun? Shouldn't such a reflection be sharper?
geckzilla wrote:
The moon really seems similarly bright as the ocean, too.
The albedo of the Moon and of the ocean is similar. In this image, however, the Moon probably appears somewhat brighter than its albedo would suggest because with the Sun almost directly behind the camera, there will be a strong opposition effect.
The albedo of the Far Side
and of the ocean is similar.
Ann wrote:
After the Moon has passed, there is a somewhat bright, relatively colorless (gray), rather large and diffuse spot which seems to move across the ocean of the Earth (the Pacific, I think). Is that a reflection of the Sun? Shouldn't such a reflection be sharper?
For only the second time in a year, a NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth. ...
The images were captured by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four-megapixel CCD camera and telescope on the DSCOVR satellite orbiting 1 million miles from Earth. From its position between the sun and Earth, DSCOVR conducts its primary mission of real-time solar wind monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
EPIC maintains a constant view of the fully illuminated Earth as it rotates, providing scientific observations of ozone, vegetation, cloud height and aerosols in the atmosphere. The EPIC camera is providing a series of Earth images allowing study of daily variations over the entire globe.
These images were taken between July 4 at 11:50 p.m. EDT and July 5 at 3:18 a.m. EDT (0350 UTC and 0718 UTC on July 5), showing the moon moving over the Indian and Pacific oceans. The North Pole is at the top of the images. ...
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
An Icy Trick of the Light, May 24, 2017
by Kate Ramsayer, NASA GSFC, with Mike Carlowicz.
<<Situated about 1 million miles from Earth toward the Sun, NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) maintains a constant view of the sunlit face of our planet. Over the past two years, the satellite has observed something that researchers were not expecting when they launched the satellite. The main imager, NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), has detected hundreds of flashes of light reflecting off the planet.
The team cataloged 866 prospective sunlight glints over land between June 2015 and August 2016. The flashes show up in three distinct colors because the camera takes the red, green, and blue images several minutes apart. The scientists reasoned that if these flashes were caused by reflected sunlight, they would be limited to certain spots on the globe where the angle between the Sun and Earth is the same as the angle between the spacecraft and Earth. When they plotted the locations of glints against the angles, the two matched. The researchers also determined that the light was reflecting off of ice particles floating in the air nearly horizontally.
The EPIC data also helped confirm that the flashes are coming from a high altitude, not simply water on the ground. Two channels on the instrument are designed to measure the height of clouds. According to the observations, high cirrus clouds—5 to 8 kilometers (3 to 5 miles) up in the atmosphere—appeared wherever the glints were located. “The source of the flashes is definitely not on the ground,” Marshak said. “It is definitely ice, and most likely solar reflection off of horizontally oriented particles.”>>
