<div>NASA has captured the first image of the sunlit side of Earth from a distance of 1.6 million kilometres, which prompted US President Barack Obama to tweet about the need to protect the "only planet we have."<br /><br />The colour images of Earth from NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite are generated by combining three separate images to create a photographic-quality image.<br /><br />The image clicked on July 6 clearly shows desert sand structures, river systems and complex cloud patterns, NASA said.<br /><br />"Just got this new blue marble photo from @NASA. A beautiful reminder that we need to protect the only planet we have," Obama tweeted on his official account @POTUS.<br /><br />The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters - from ultraviolet to near infrared.<br /><br />"This first DSCOVR image of our planet demonstrates the unique and important benefits of Earth observation from space," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.<br /><br />"DSCOVR's observations of Earth, as well as its measurements and early warnings of space weather events caused by the Sun, will help every person to monitor the ever-changing Earth, and to understand how our planet fits into its neighbourhood in the solar system," said Bolden.<br /><br />These initial Earth images show the effects of sunlight scattered by air molecules, giving the images a characteristic bluish tint.<br /><br />The EPIC team now is working on a rendering of these images that emphasises land features and removes this atmospheric effect.<br /><br />Once the instrument begins regular data acquisition, new images will be available every day, 12 to 36 hours after they are acquired by EPIC. These images will be posted to a dedicated web page by September.<br /><br />"The high quality of the EPIC images exceeded all of our expectations in resolution," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.<br /><br />The satellite was launched in February and recently reached its planned orbit at the first Lagrange point or L1, about one million miles from Earth towards the Sun.<br /><br />It's from that unique vantage point that the EPIC instrument is acquiring science quality images of the entire sunlit face of Earth.<br /><br />Data from EPIC will be used to measure ozone and aerosol levels in Earth's atmosphere, cloud height, vegetation properties and the ultraviolet reflectivity of Earth.<br /><br />NASA will use this data for a number of Earth science applications, including dust and volcanic ash maps of the entire planet.<br /></div>
<div>NASA has captured the first image of the sunlit side of Earth from a distance of 1.6 million kilometres, which prompted US President Barack Obama to tweet about the need to protect the "only planet we have."<br /><br />The colour images of Earth from NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite are generated by combining three separate images to create a photographic-quality image.<br /><br />The image clicked on July 6 clearly shows desert sand structures, river systems and complex cloud patterns, NASA said.<br /><br />"Just got this new blue marble photo from @NASA. A beautiful reminder that we need to protect the only planet we have," Obama tweeted on his official account @POTUS.<br /><br />The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters - from ultraviolet to near infrared.<br /><br />"This first DSCOVR image of our planet demonstrates the unique and important benefits of Earth observation from space," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.<br /><br />"DSCOVR's observations of Earth, as well as its measurements and early warnings of space weather events caused by the Sun, will help every person to monitor the ever-changing Earth, and to understand how our planet fits into its neighbourhood in the solar system," said Bolden.<br /><br />These initial Earth images show the effects of sunlight scattered by air molecules, giving the images a characteristic bluish tint.<br /><br />The EPIC team now is working on a rendering of these images that emphasises land features and removes this atmospheric effect.<br /><br />Once the instrument begins regular data acquisition, new images will be available every day, 12 to 36 hours after they are acquired by EPIC. These images will be posted to a dedicated web page by September.<br /><br />"The high quality of the EPIC images exceeded all of our expectations in resolution," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.<br /><br />The satellite was launched in February and recently reached its planned orbit at the first Lagrange point or L1, about one million miles from Earth towards the Sun.<br /><br />It's from that unique vantage point that the EPIC instrument is acquiring science quality images of the entire sunlit face of Earth.<br /><br />Data from EPIC will be used to measure ozone and aerosol levels in Earth's atmosphere, cloud height, vegetation properties and the ultraviolet reflectivity of Earth.<br /><br />NASA will use this data for a number of Earth science applications, including dust and volcanic ash maps of the entire planet.<br /></div>