Watch the video above: NASA satellite captures beautiful view of far side of the moon as it crosses in front of Earth.
TORONTO – A NASA camera is giving us a glimpse at what it would look like if we were out in space looking back at Earth from 1.5 million kilometres away.
NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory is a satellite that is monitoring the solar wind and will allow us better monitoring of its effect on Earth. On board DSCOVR is the Earth Polycrhomatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel camera that monitors the planet’s ozone, vegetation and aerosols as well as cloud heights.
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The images show the far side of the moon as it crosses between Earth and the satellite. They were taken by EPIC on July 16 — 46 years to the day that Apollo 11, the first mission to put humans on the moon, launched.
Humans had no idea what the far side of the moon looked like until 1959 when the Soviet Union’s Luna 3 sent back pictures. And though we think of it as the dark side of the moon, the entire surface of the moon is illuminated by the sun at one point or another in its orbit. It’s just because the Earth and moon are tidally locked that we only see one part illuminated.
And the far side of the moon looks very different from the side we see. Instead of the flat, dark plains together with some craters, the far side is pockmarked with many more craters, evidence that the moon was constantly bombarded in its early history.
The camera will see this unique view of Earth and moon just twice a year.
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