Satellite From A Million Miles Away Shows The Moon Crossing The Earth

More often than not when we stare into the night sky to look at the moon, all we see is a relatively bright ball of light. Sometimes we can make out the shadows left in its craters, but unless we had access to a super telescope, chances are that’s all we’d ever see of the moon, but now thanks to NASA, that has changed.

NASA has recently released a video (see above) which shows the moon crossing the face of the Earth. This is a perspective of the moon and the Earth that not many of us get to see and boy are we impressed. According to NASA, the images of the moon crossing the Earth are courtesy of the agency’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC).

This is a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope found on the DSCOVR satellite which at the moment is orbiting an amazing 1 million miles above the Earth. Thanks to its unique positioning, it has allowed the capture of the stunning footage you can see above. However given that these are a series of images strung together into a video, it’s not exactly the smoothest transition, but it should be enough to give you an idea.

According to one of DSCOVR’s scientists Adam Szabo, “It is surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon. Our planet is a truly brilliant object in dark space compared to the lunar surface.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: NASA, Space