DSCOVR EPIC pictures
October 20, 2015 1:39 PM Subscribe
Yesterday, NASA launched a website hosting daily images of the full, sunlit side of the Earth. They're taken by the EPIC camera attached to the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) that's sitting in L1, ~1,500,000 km from Earth.
For more on the seventeen year saga of DSCOVR/Triana, see the DSCOVR tag.
For more on the seventeen year saga of DSCOVR/Triana, see the DSCOVR tag.
I'm terrible for thinking this but they're kind of blurry. Although mostly that's just me appreciating how much processing work is done to make NASA's beautiful publicity releases; these look more like rough prints.
The coolest thing about the camera is it's taking images at 10 different colors from ultraviolet to infrared. Are the images for each wavelength available separately somewhere?
posted by Nelson at 2:03 PM on October 20, 2015
The coolest thing about the camera is it's taking images at 10 different colors from ultraviolet to infrared. Are the images for each wavelength available separately somewhere?
posted by Nelson at 2:03 PM on October 20, 2015
What about the shadow of the spacecraft? Won't that get in the way?
posted by scalefree at 2:03 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by scalefree at 2:03 PM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
OMG scalefree I came here to say the same thing :p
posted by hypersloth at 2:22 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by hypersloth at 2:22 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
The craft is tiny by comparison so its shadow is too. Since the sun is not a point source of light the shadow would be heavily diffused as well.
I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation and it seems the farthest point from the craft where its body would still cast a full shadow (umbra) at all would be approximately 106 meters away based on the smallest diameter. (The body is 54"x72".)
To cast any full shadow on Earth which is 1.5 million kilometers away from the craft positioned at L1 the craft's diameter would have to be approximately 14,000 kilometers.
So the craft as is casts an extremely light penumbra. I'd be surprised if it was even remotely detectable at all.
(cleaned up for readability)
posted by Hairy Lobster at 2:33 PM on October 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation and it seems the farthest point from the craft where its body would still cast a full shadow (umbra) at all would be approximately 106 meters away based on the smallest diameter. (The body is 54"x72".)
To cast any full shadow on Earth which is 1.5 million kilometers away from the craft positioned at L1 the craft's diameter would have to be approximately 14,000 kilometers.
So the craft as is casts an extremely light penumbra. I'd be surprised if it was even remotely detectable at all.
(cleaned up for readability)
posted by Hairy Lobster at 2:33 PM on October 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
To put it another way: the moon is huge and barely manages to cast an umbra on the earth. This spacecraft is tiny and is about 4 times further away than the moon.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:37 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:37 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think scalefree might have been kidding, but in any case DSCOVR is not directly between the Sun and Earth. It orbits the Lagrangian point and is actually pretty far away from it. You can actually see this yourself if you go look at the photos from September 6 or 7, when the SEV angle was much smaller (less than 5 degrees), and then compare them to yesterday's photos (11 degrees) where the top left of Earth is visibly more shadowed than the bottom right.
posted by theodolite at 2:49 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 2:49 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I'm pretty sure scalefree was kidding.
posted by brundlefly at 3:17 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by brundlefly at 3:17 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Dammit... I guess I wasted the back of a perfectly good envelope :(
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:21 PM on October 20, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:21 PM on October 20, 2015 [13 favorites]
I think I am seeing the shadow of The Himalayas across the top of India.
posted by Oyéah at 3:29 PM on October 20, 2015
posted by Oyéah at 3:29 PM on October 20, 2015
I think I'm seeing the Shadow of Gore across all of this.
posted by notyou at 3:32 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by notyou at 3:32 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
For a closer look, check out NASA's Worldview. These photos are taken from climate observation satellites in polar orbit, much closer to Earth than DSCOVR.
posted by Loudmax at 5:24 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Loudmax at 5:24 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Something is wrong with the registration of the different image bands. Blue and red are offset in the resulting color image.
posted by kiltedtaco at 6:32 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by kiltedtaco at 6:32 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah sorry or maybe not but it was a joke.
posted by scalefree at 9:07 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by scalefree at 9:07 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
L-1...I thought that was where they were going to put the hotel. What happened?
Cool pics.
posted by mule98J at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2015
Cool pics.
posted by mule98J at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2015
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Another preconception corrected, hopefully.
Also, wowie.
posted by Hactar at 1:57 PM on October 20, 2015