A New View
This summer, DSCOVR took the first complete photo of Earth’s sunlit face in 43 years. It was taken from one million miles away.
NASA’s ‘Blue Marbles’: Pictures of Earth From 1972 to Today
To celebrate NASA’s newest photo of Earth, here’s a look at some of the ones that came before it.
On Monday, NASA released a photo of the entire sunlit side of Earth—the first since the original Blue Marble photo in 1972. NASA has released several similar images of Earth since then, but they were stitched together from multiple photos taken at different times. Unlike those, this week’s photo captured the planet's sunny side at one moment.
This new view of Earth comes from a mission meant to collect this kind of data. In February, NASA launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) to provide a continuous look at Earth’s sunlit face. With a 24-hour view of where the sun shines, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hopes to track solar storms before they hit Earth.
DSCOVR took this
