The image clearly shows the moon’s far side lit up by the sun – though even in full sunlight, the Earth is far brighter.
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“The lunar far side lacks the large, dark, basaltic plains, or maria, that are so prominent on the Earth-facing side”, said Nasa.
It’s not the first image of the dark side, however.
First images of the “dark side” of the moon, never seen from Earth, were taken by USSR’s Luna 3 spacecraft in 1959.
NASA has recently released a video (see above) which shows the moon crossing the face of the Earth. Since then, several missions by NASA and other space agencies have imaged the lunar far side. On July 16, the moon crossed in between Earth and the spacecraft as it was taking its usual images using its Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). But its EPIC camera will also constantly monitor the Earth to provide scientific observations of vegetation, ozone, aerosols, and cloud height. NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft caught a similar photo in 2008, but it was from a distant 31 million miles away. Aboard it is the EPIC camera looking back towards Earth, and this has just transmitted back a fascinating sequence of images showing the Moon passing in front of the mother world. Its most notable features are a patch of basalt called the Mare Moscoviense (Sea of Moscow) visible in the top left of this image, and the Tsiolkovskiy crater in the lower left.
The Earth and the Moon, seen from a distance of 1.6 million kilometres. It’s dark side gets shown in utmost illumination as it blocks the sunlight hitting the Earth. NASA says it will be sharing these photos publicly on its website within 12 to 36 hours after arriving from space.
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DSCOVR is the result of joint efforts being made by NASA, NOAA and the US Air Force to enable forecasters to make better solar magnetic storm predictions.
