Happy Holidays: A Year in the Life of the Blue Planet

As Perspectives readers gather with family and friends to celebrate the holidays, the Water Quality and Health Council invites you to share a mesmerizing time-lapse view of our home, the Blue Planet, from space.

Hovering in a gravity-neutral zone between Earth and the sun, a million miles over the Blue Planet, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite recently completed one year of photographing the sun-lit side of Earth and monitoring the weather in deep space.

Scientist Jay Herman narrates this video showing one year in the life of Earth seen through the lens of NASA’s EPIC camera.

NASA’s hi-tech Polychromatic Imaging Camera clicked an image every two hours for an entire year, “…capturing the ever-changing motion of clouds and weather systems and the fixed features of Earth such as deserts, forests and the distinct blues of different seas,” according to a NASA website.  The photographs will help scientists study daily variations in Earth’s vegetation, ozone, aerosols, cloud height and reflectivity.  As NASA’s first operational satellite in deep space, DSCOVR is also our “eyes on the sun,” monitoring and providing at least a 15 minute warning of solar magnetic storms that have the potential to disrupt infrastructure on Earth.

We hope you enjoy this year-in-the-life view of the Blue Planet!

Happy Holidays from the Water Quality and Health Council

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