Here’s why NASA is releasing spectacular images of Earth

NASA is posting dozens of incredible images of our planet on its website taken by a satellite that is a million miles away — and they have a reason for doing it beyond just curiosity.

NASA will post at least a dozen new color images of Earth every day taken by its Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), according to a Live Science report.

NASA posted a statement on its website announcing their project, showing the Earth rotating over the course of a day, and also providing archives allowing people to load an image of a particular continent on a particular day.

The EPIC telescope and camera is capable of capturing a series of 10 images taken at different wavelengths, going from ultraviolet all the way to near-infrared in very short exposures — only 100 milliseconds long at the most, simply because Earth is so bright when you compare it to the infinite blackness of space. The short exposure means you won’t see any stars in the photo.

But these photos aren’t just for fun. The images of our planet will help scientists watch how it changes, particularly in imporant as researchers keep an eye on how climate change is affecting the Earth. By watching these images, scientists can see changes in vegetation, cloud height, ozone, and other critical factors.

EPIC is part of the DSCOVR observatory, which was actually created to monitor solar wind. Solar wind is what happens when the sun blasts particles outside its magnetic field, sending them into space. These particles collide with our atmosphere and magnetic field, creating geomagnetic storms that can knock out satellites and also create the spectacular phenomenon known as the Northern Lights.