NASA's EPIC camera, aboard NOAA's DSCOVR satellite, captured a unique view of this week's solar eclipse. While residents of the Western Pacific looked up in the early morning hours to observe a total eclipse of the sun, DSCOVR looked on from a million miles away and captured the shadow of the moon crossing the planet.
This series of images was captured by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope on the DSCOVR satellite. A million miles away, NOAA's DSCOVR satellite is the Nation's first operational satellite in deep space. DSCOVR hovers between the sun and Earth at all times, maintaining a constant view of the sun and 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.
NASA's EPIC imager also gives Earth scientists a unique vantage point for studies of the atmosphere and climate by continuously viewing the sunlit side of the planet. The EPIC imager provides global spectral images of Earth and insight into Earth's energy balance. EPIC's observations provide a unique angular perspective, and will be 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.
To learn more about this EPIC eclipse, visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87675&eocn=home&eoci=iotd_image
Credit: NASA image courtesy of the DSCOVR EPIC team.