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NASA releases a year-long look at the sunlit face of the Earth
The DSCOVR satellite gave us a rare glimpse of the sunlit face of the Earth in 2015. Now that it's been orbiting the planet for over a year, its EPIC camera has finally captured enough images for a year-long time-lapse video of our home. In the past, you had to be an astronaut to get a look at the side of the Earth that's lit up by the sun. DSCOVR changed that when it started orbiting the planet from a million miles away and taking photos of its view every two hours. The satellite is stationed between the sun and the Earth in a location that's known as the Lagrange point 1.
DSCOVR films a different view of the total solar eclipse
The DSCOVR satellite used its location between the sun and the Earth to its advantage to capture the total solar eclipse from a different perspective. While people were taking photos of the sun being consumed by the moon in the sky a few days ago, DSCOVR was filming the moon's shadow moving across the planet. NASA's four-megapixel Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) aboard the satellite took a full-resolution image every 20 minutes during the event. It ended up capturing 13 photos spanning the eclipse's entire duration. Adam Szabo, one of the scientists in charge of the satellite, said he's "not aware of anybody ever capturing the full eclipse in one set of images or video" before.
NASA offers a rare, steady view of the sunlit Earth
Until now, getting a good, steady look at the sunlit side of Earth either required a trip to the Moon or a photo from a departing space probe. Neither of those are very practical, to put it mildly. However, NASA is now delivering those kinds of photos in spades. Thanks to its DSCOVR satellite, it's snapping a complete, consistent picture of the sunlit Earth every two hours. This different perspective on our home planet is not only pretty (as you'll see in the video below), but opens up studies that weren't really possible before. Scientists can track clouds and dust as they travel around the world, for example.
Get a daily fresh look at the Earth with NASA's new website
NASA launched a new website Monday to remind forgetful Terrans what their planet looks like. The website will feature at least a dozen new images of the Earth's full, sunlit face from within the past 36 hours. The EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) aboard NASA's DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) satellite will be responsible for capturing these images from its orbit at L1, a distance of roughly one million miles. While the EPIC itself only boasts a 4 megapixel resolution, it is capable of snapping up to 10 narrowband wavelength images at a time. By combining three of these single-color images into a composite, NASA can generate 12 MP images for the site.
DSCOVR photographs the moon's journey across the Earth
The DSCOVR satellite has outdone itself: after taking a photo of the Earth in July, it has now captured a series of images showing the moon making its way across the Pacific Ocean. Since the satellite is in orbit a million miles away (much farther than most satellites and the ISS) to measure solar winds for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the images show the dark side of the moon, which we never see from our POV. The photo series was taken by DSCOVR's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on July 16th between 3:50PM and 8:45PM Eastern time.
The Big Picture: NASA posts DSCOVR's epic first image of Earth
What does Earth look like from a million miles away? Well, NASA provided the masses with a glimpse today, thanks to the first photo snapped from the Deep Space Climate Observatory Satellite (DSCOVR) launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9 in February. More specifically, the image is constructed from three separate photos taken with NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). The camera captures a series of ten images ranging from ultraviolet to near infrared narrowband filters. For the visual you see above, the red, blue and green channels were used to create the view. What's more, once the instrument is to put a regular work schedule, it'll send new images to Earth every day -- 12 to 36 hours after they're taken. And yes, you'll be able to see them as NASA is planning a dedicated web page to house them all in September.
Solar storm-monitoring satellite reaches orbit a million miles away
NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) almost become a very expensive piece of junk. It spent over a decade in storage until the Air Force injected the project with $35 million in much-needed funding. Now, the satellite has finally made it to its destination more than 100 days after SpaceX's Falcon 9 ferried it beyond our atmosphere during its first ever deep space flight. DSCOVR is now in its final orbit: a place called Lagrange point 1 (L1), located a million miles away from our planet or around four times farther than the moon. That position gives the satellite a clear view of both the sun and the Earth, allowing its instruments to effectively monitor solar winds, as well as measure ozone amounts and the planet's radiation budget.
US budget has NASA planning to capture an asteroid, USAF reviving DSCOVR (video)
Many have lamented the seeming decline of the US space program. While we're not expecting an immediate return to the halcyon days, the President's proposed federal budget for fiscal 2014 could see some renewed ambition. NASA's slice of the pie includes a plan that would improve detection of near-Earth asteroids, send a solar-powered robot ship (like the NASA concept above) to capture one of the space rocks and tow it back to a stable orbit near Earth, where researchers could study it up close. The agency would have humans setting foot on the asteroid by 2025, or even as soon as 2021. It's a grand goal to say the least, but we'd potentially learn more about solar propulsion and defenses against asteroid collisions. If NASA's plans mostly involve the future, the US Air Force budget is looking into the past. It's setting aside $35 million for a long-discussed resurrection of the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite, also known as DSCOVR -- a vehicle that was scuppered in 2001 due to cost overruns, among other factors. Run by NOAA once aloft, the modernized satellite would focus on warning the Earth about incoming solar winds. That's just one of the satellite's original missions, but the November 2014 launch target is relatively realistic -- and we'll need it when the satellite currently fulfilling the role is overdue for a replacement.
