Just over one year since the first million-mile portrait of Earth was released, NASA has unveiled a new time-lapse video , allowing viewers to watch “One Year on Earth,” as captured by the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), reported Newsweek . The camera takes a photo every two hours and is positioned in a stable orbit at a gravitationally steady point in space between the Earth and the Sun on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite.
This is a real footage from NASA’s EPIC camera on the DSCOVR satellite and I can’t stop watching it. pic.twitter.com/UhalRNOTfy
— Emily Calandrelli (@TheSpaceGal) July 23, 2016
NASA compiled around 3,000 of these images to create the “One Year on Earth” time-lapse video, which reveals how the planet would look to human eyes at each point in time that an image was captured.
“The time-lapse also shows the moon’s passing over the Earth during a March 2016 solar eclipse.”
Captured in March of 2016, the total solar eclipse shows the Moon’s shadow move across the face of the Earth as the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun.
EPIC will reportedly allow scientists at NASA to observe and record ozone and aerosol levels in Earth’s atmosphere, as well as monitor cloud height, vegetation properties, and the UV reflectivity of Earth. Lead DSCOVR scientist Jay Herman narrates the short video of the Earth, explaining what we are looking at throughout the course of one year.
Although NASA has been releasing daily images of Earth taken by EPIC, this is the first time they have been put together to make a short video. The amazing footage also includes many images of the Moon “photobombing the Earth,” reported Popular Science . Originally built in the late 1990s but shut down due to severe budget cuts, the DSCOVR satellite was finally launched in February of 2015 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and is scheduled to continue observing Earth for at least five more years.
“The hourly images of the entire sunlit side of Earth, provided by EPIC, will be used to study the daily variations of features over the entire globe , helping us to better understand – and protect – our home planet,” Herman stated in an interview with EcoWatch .
EPIC also captured two lunar transits over the last year, which are made possible by the satellite’s unique position in space. While logic may lead you to think that EPIC should always be able to see the Moon, since the satellite is located between the Earth and the Sun at all times, in reality the camera has a very limited field of vision and the Moon is incredibly far from Earth on an orbit that is tilted about five degrees, so the Moon is typically outside of EPIC’s frame of view, reported TechCrunch .
“In addition to total solar eclipses and lunar transits, EPIC has seen a trio of large storms marching across the Pacific Ocean, forest fires in Southeast Asia and views of the North and South poles.”
Earth’s tilt is what allows EPIC to view both the North and South Poles throughout the year, adding that this tilt is also responsible for causing our various seasons. DSCOVR always remains at the same location between the Earth and the Sun at a balance point known as Lagrange Point 1. Here, the spacecraft is essentially “parked,” which allows it to make continual observations of the Earth-facing Sun and Sun-facing Earth.
“Altogether, these images provide a constant view of our planet that we’ve never really had before,” wrote TechCrunch .
DSCOVR sent back its first image of the Earth in early July 2015 as part of the ongoing satellite mission, which is made possible thanks to a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), NASA, and the U.S. Air Force.
[Image via Shutterstock]