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This animation features actual satellite images of the far side of the moon, illuminated by the sun, as it crosses between the DSCOVR spacecraft’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) and telescope, and the Earth – one million miles away. Credit: NASA/NOAA Although it looks fake, this viral footage of the Moon orbiting Earth is actually real. It’s just not new, despite making the rounds again this week; it actually was captured over 6 years ago. Back in 2015, a NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) captured this unique series of images displaying the ‘dark side’ of the...

The Falcon 9 booster was launched in February 2015 as part of a mission to send a climate observation satellite 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, but since running out of fuel, the 4.4-ton (4 metric tons) rocket has been hurtling around space in a chaotic orbit. The rocket's upper stage is now expected to hit the far side of the moon while traveling at a blistering speed of 5,771 mph (9,288 km/h) on March 4, 2022, according to Bill Gray, a developer of software that tracks near-Earth objects. In a Jan. 21 blog post, Gray noted that the...

It stands to reason that if you put an Earth-observing satellite beyond the moon's orbit, there might be the chance that occasionally the moon may drift in front. And in the case of the joint NOAA/NASA/U.S. Air Force Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), this is the the second time the moon has made an Earth transit spectacle. "For the second time in the life of DSCOVR, the moon moved between the spacecraft and Earth," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in a statement "The project recorded this event on July 5...

The Moon's shadow is cast across Indonesia in this view from the DSCOVR spacecraft, March 9, 2016. (Courtesy of the DSCOVR EPIC team.) On March 8, 2016 (March 9 local time) the Moon briefly blocked the light from the Sun in what was the only total solar eclipse of the year. The event was visible across portions of southeast Asia, Indonesia, and Micronesia, and was observed by both skywatchers on the ground in person and those watching live online around the world. While to most the view was of a silhouetted Moon slowly carving away the disk of the...

After flying 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) since its Feb. 11 launch, the Deep Space Climate Observatory, DSCOVR for short, will look to the sun starting next month and warn people about solar ejections that can damage Earth's magnetic field and disrupt the grids, global positioning systems and communications networks. The satellite is part of a system that the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, uses to warn power companies, airlines and other susceptible industries about potentially adverse conditions. "It is probably one of the most important links in the chain," said Howard Singer, chief scientist at...