After wowing the world with the first-ever close-up images of Pluto, NASA has released another groundbreaking photo taken a little closer to home.
This image is the first full view of the sunlit side of the Earth taken from one million miles away.
The turquoise spots you see in the middle are the shallow seas of the Caribbean.
The color photo is a combination of three images taken by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel charge-coupled (CCD) camera and telescope.
The camera’s embedded on the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite (DSCOVR), which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in February this year.
Researchers are working to remove the atmospheric effect from the photo, which gives the image a bluish tint. By September, NASA says it should be sending regular, clearer images back to a dedicated website.
They should allow scientists for the first time to monitor daily variations across the entire globe.
The role of the DSCOVR satellite is to send back real-time information on solar wind patterns to improve weather forecasting by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
