28 Dec 2015 - Earth And Dark Side Of Moon (via Satellite)

Eric C Wilhelm
December 28, 2015 ·
The moon passed between Nasa's Deep Space Climate Observatory
and the Earth, allowing the satellite to capture this rare image
of the moon's far side in full sunlight.

We normally don't see this side of the moon.

As the moon is tidally locked to the earth and doesn't rotate,
we only ever see the one face from the earth.

Awesome shot!

 

Another shot with the moon going behind.

The camera is a million miles (almost) from Earth,
with the sun not quite exactly behind it

—there is a slight angle deviation,
which is where the shadow band comes from.

It's not a "drop shadow" but an unlit crescent of the moon itself,
like when the moon is only half a day away from being full.

In the photo of the moon behind the Earth
you can see Earth has that unlit crescent too.

These shots are also not composites.

The EPIC camera on DSCOVR was made to take whole exposures of the Earth.

The moon looks "dim" because its albedo is much lower than Earth's
—it's simply not as reflective.



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