The photograph was taken from a distance of 1.6 million kilometers by the DSCOVR spacecraft, taking advantage of the opportunity of the spacecraft being behind the moon at the time of birth, so the entire "dark" side was illuminated by sunlight
A camera installed on NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured the unique sight of the moon moving from in front of the bright side of the Earth. The series of experimental images shows the "dark side", that is, the side that is not visible from the Earth is completely illuminated.
The images were taken by the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) - a CCD camera with a resolution of four mega pixels installed as a telescope on the DSCOVR satellite orbiting the Earth from a distance of 1.6 million kilometers. From this point, between the Sun and Earth, the DSCOVR satellite fulfills its role of monitoring the solar wind in real time for the National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Agency (NOAA).
The EPIC camera maintains a position where it always sees the entire Earth illuminated as it rotates around its axis, thus allowing scientific observations of the ozone layer, vegetation, cloud height and aerosols in the atmosphere. From the moment EPIC begins making regular observations next month, the camera will provide a series of images of the Earth that will allow the study of diurnal variation across the entire planet. Twice a year the camera will capture the Moon and Earth together as DSCOVR's orbit crosses the plane of the Moon's orbit around Earth.
The photo was taken on July 16, the moon's birth from our vantage point between 15:50-20:45 PM EST, and shows the moon moving over the Pacific Ocean near North America. The North Pole is in the upper left corner of the image, reflecting the inclination of the Earth's orbit from the spacecraft's perspective.
The far side of the moon was not observed until 1959 when the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 took the first pictures. Since then several NASA spacecraft have photographed the far side of the moon in great detail. The same side of the Moon is always facing the Earth because the Moon is gravitationally locked to the Earth. This means that the duration of its orbit around the Earth is the same as the duration of its rotation on its axis.
In May 2008, the Deep Impact spacecraft took a similar image of the Earth and the Moon from a distance of 50 million kilometers. That series of images showed the Moon crossing in front of Earth with its far side partially illuminated by the Sun.
The "natural color" images of EPIC were created by combining three consecutive photographs using other filters. EPOC Camera is able to photograph using ten such filters in the spectrum range from the ultraviolet light to the near infrared, to produce a variety of scientific products. The red, green and blue channels were used in this color image.
Combining three images taken 30 seconds apart while the moon was moving at that time, caused artificial spots that are almost imperceptible on the right side of the map because the moon was moving relative to the earth between the time when the first image (exposed to the red color) and the last (green) was taken, therefore the right part Looks a little greener after combining the three exposures. This natural motion of the moon also caused a red and blue bias on the left side of these images.
The far side of the Moon lacks the large basalt plains or seas as we call them, that dominate the Earth-facing side. The largest formation on the far side of the Moon is the Moscow Sea in the upper left and Tselikowsky Crater in the lower right. A silver shaded area is visible on the right side.
"It's surprising to see how much brighter the Earth is than the Moon," says Adam Shabu, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Center in Maryland. "Our Earth is a shining object in the darkness of space compared to the surface of the Moon."
When EPIC begins its regular observations next month, NASA will upload a daily color image of the Earth to a dedicated website. These images will give different perspectives of the Earth as it rotates on its axis during the day, about 12-36 hours after they were taken.
DSCOVR is a partnership between NASA NOAA and the US Air Force whose main goals are to maintain the ability to monitor the solar wind, an essential data for the accuracy of warnings of phenomena in space that affect the Earth ("space weather") and for NOAA's forecasts.
For information on the NASA website
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How can it be that the clouds do not move at all?
This is photoshop at its worst
Just unbelievable!
What if I'm the only one who sees that it's a computer??
There are alien bases on the moon as well as Western bases
There is nothing "mysterious" about this photo. The spacecraft is close to a special place called L1, and is in a sort of gravitational equilibrium between the Earth and the Sun (that is, the spacecraft orbits L1 in a special orbit).
As mentioned in the article, the picture is a combination of several photographs, so there are several artifacts in the picture.
And no - there is no alien base on the far side of the moon 🙂
Ofir
The farther the photo point is from the moon
It will appear smaller compared to Earth.
If you take a picture right on the moon, it will hide the whole earth…
I don't understand much of the "mystery" in photographing the dark side...
It was supposed to be a trivial and routine thing…
Ophir actually seems to me that it works out great, and what you see in the photo is the reality. See this drawing for example:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Lunareclipsediagram1.gif
If the camera is close enough to the moon (on the right side of the illustration) this is exactly what you are expected to see... to me by the way it really doesn't look like the moon is touching or almost touching the earth, it is your personal illusion.
The moon moves between a distance of 363,104 - 406,696 km from the earth. The photo was taken from a distance of 1600000 km (if I was able to convert units correctly in my current brain state). From this it follows that the camera is about 4 times farther from the moon than the moon from XNUMX. You can now take two balls and place them in the same relationship and look or take a picture and see how it looks (when you look, remember to close one eye, cameras have no depth perception).
My assessment is that it is more a function of the flattening of the objects due to the direct lighting angle (from the sun).
Avi. I guess there's a crazy optical illusion here
The moon is 30 times the diameter of the earth from the earth
And here it looks as if the moon is actually touching the atmosphere
Is it because of the zoom lens?
I wonder how all this should look in reality... a