The moon and the earth as you have never seen – ZDNet.be

The above video goes up to the imagination. What you see is our moon revolves around the earth, as observed by the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). The satellite, which aims to monitor the evolution of climate and vegetation on the earth in the eye, the images took on July 16 of this year. On the globe you can see the Pacific Ocean and North America. Arctic see top left.

Always day

NASA positioned DSCOVR after launch by a SpaceX rocket on February 11 this year between the earth and the sun on the so-called L1 Lagrange point. Since the satellite always keeps the same position relative to the two bodies. The result is that it is never night for DSCOVR: the art man has at all times the full reveal of the earth in sight

About twice a year, the moon nicely between DSCOVR and earth pass by. above images as a result. You will notice that the moon does not look like you’re just them. Logically, of course: From the L1 point Discovr see the back of the moon. We saw humanity for the first time thanks to the Soviets in 1959.

No dark side

As you know, the moon at all times with the same side to the earth. One tour around the earth takes for the moon after all, exactly one day. The “front” of our natural satellite has a lot of relief in the form of dark spots which are called seas. The back is much duller: upper falls mainly on the Sea of ​​Muscovy. These images illustrate yet again with its clear why Pink Floyd ‘Dark’ Side of the Moon musical admittedly was doing well, but a little less scientific. After all, the back side of the moon sees regular sunlight.

Another notable finding, of how dark the moon really is in comparison to the way we see the celestial body at night. In addition to the illuminated earth you can clearly see how much sunlight the lunar surface really reflects. For those looking for a shadow of the Moon on the earth that will not find you. earth, sun and moon should really be exactly aligned to obtain such a shadow, and we are taking over the world where as a solar eclipse.

NASA put the movie together on the basis of three successive pictures, respectively, in the red, the green and the blue spectrum. Every thirty seconds, so DSCOVR took three pictures. In total, the satellite can observe ten spectra so as to maintain the state of the earth in the eye. The three color images were combined by NASA, but because they were not fully taken simultaneously see above and behind the moon little colored distortions. Click here to see the picture from NASA to full size.