Posted on 08/07/2015 3:36:49 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: The Moon was new on July 16. Its familiar nearside facing the surface of planet Earth was in shadow. But on that date a million miles away, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) captured this view of an apparently Full Moon crossing in front of a Full Earth. In fact, seen from the spacecraft's position beyond the Moon's orbit and between Earth and Sun, the fully illuminated lunar hemisphere is the less familiar farside. Only known since the dawn of the space age, the farside is mostly devoid of dark lunar maria that sprawl across the Moon's perpetual Earth-facing hemisphere. Only the small dark spot of the farside's Mare Moscoviense (Sea of Moscow) is clear, at the upper left. Planet Earth's north pole is near 11 o'clock, with the North America visited by Hurricane Dolores near center. Slight color shifts are visible around the lunar edge, an artifact of the Moon's motion through the field caused by combining the camera's separate exposures taken in quick succession through different color filters. While monitoring the Earth and solar wind for space weather forcasts, about twice a year DSCOVR can capture similar images of Moon and Earth together as its crosses the orbital plane of the Moon.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: NASA, NOAA/DSCOVR]
Trying to figures from the scale would look like this 1 million miles from earth and 760,000 from the moon. Looks wrong.
Looks like the Death Star, circling, ready to attack. Very odd looking pic.
This is what you would see if you were using a moderately powered telescope at that distance.
Partial eclipse of the earth, nice.
Plus you can see our California coast and the storm that gave us unusual rain the following weekend.
The “Dark Side of the Moon” looks weird.
I’m pretty happy we get to look at the ‘good’ side of the Moon, the back is pretty dull. Imagine though that we always faced the other side — when the first ‘dark side’ photos arrived from probes, how aghast we’d all have been.
Amazing shot, from an amazing perspective.
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