EPIC Solar Eclipse Views: The Deep Space Climate Observatory | NOAA/NASA

EPIC Solar Eclipse Views: The Deep Space Climate Observatory | NOAA/NASA

Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR): Celebrating The 9-Year Anniversary (2015-2024)

From one million miles away, NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s DSCOVR satellite captured these spectacular views of the total solar eclipse that swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada on April 8, 2024. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe. 

Learn more on NASA's Eclipse page: 

https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/

This is NOAA's first operational deep space satellite and became its primary system of warning Earth in the event of solar magnetic storms.

On Feb. 11, 2015, DSCOVR was finally lofted into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. After a journey of about 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) to the L1 Lagrange Point, the satellite and its Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). At L1—four times farther than the orbit of the Moon—the gravitational pull of the Sun and Earth cancel out, providing a stable orbit and a continuous view of Earth. These images were made by combining information from EPIC’s red, green, and blue bands. (Bands are narrow regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to which a remote sensing instrument responds. When EPIC collects data, it takes a series of 10 images at different bands—from ultraviolet to near-infrared.)

Image Credit: The DSCOVR EPIC team 

Capture Date: April 8, 2024

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