A year after returning it's first image, NASA's EPIC camera, aboard NOAA's DSCOVR satellite, shows us an entire year from one million miles away.
This video was created using NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope, aboard NOAA's DSCOVR satellite. EPIC takes a new picture every two hours, revealing how the planet would look to human eyes, capturing the ever-changing motion of clouds and weather systems and the fixed features of Earth such as deserts, forests, and the distinct blues of different seas. The camera has now recorded a full year of life on Earth from its orbit, seen here.
A million miles away, NOAA's DSCOVR, the Nation's first operational satellite in deep space, orbits a unique location called Lagrange point 1, or L1. This orbit is a gravity-neutral point in space, allowing DSCOVR to essentially hover between the sun and Earth at all times, maintaining a constant view of the sun and the sun-lit side of Earth. From here, the satellite can provide advanced solar measurements and early warnings of potentially dangerous space weather events, acting as a solar storm buoy in deep space.
Thanks to NASA's EPIC imager, DSCOVR's orbit also gives Earth scientists a unique vantage point for studies of the atmosphere and climate by continuously viewing the sunlit side of the planet. EPIC provides global spectral images of Earth and insight into Earth's energy balance. EPIC's observations provide a unique angular perspective and are used in science applications to measure ozone amounts, aerosol amounts, cloud height and phase, vegetation properties, hotspot land properties, and UV radiation estimates at Earth's surface.