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I'm Jay Herman. I'm the EPIC Lead Scientist for the DSCOVR mission.

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On July 6, 2015, we released this spectacular image of Earth taken by NASA's EPIC camera.

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Now, we assembled more than 3,000 images captured by EPIC into a time-lapse sequence

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that shows a year in the life of our planet.

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EPIC is an Earth science instrument aboard the DSCOVR satellite, which launched in February 2015.

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The spacecraft always remains between the sun and the Earth

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approximately 1 million miles away, at a special gravitational balance point known as Lagrange 1.

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From this view, EPIC sees the sunrise in the west and the sunset in the east

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at least 13 times a day.

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The haze seen around the edges is due to scattering of light by molecules in the atmosphere.

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Scattering is also what makes the sky appear blue during the day and red at sunset.

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The colors shown are our best estimate of what a human sitting at the location of EPIC would see.

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EPIC takes at least one set of images about every two hours.

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The camera records each set in 10 different wavelengths.

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At least three separate wavelengths--red, green, and blue--are combined to produce this color view.

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In March, the moon passed between the Earth and the sun causing a total solar eclipse.

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During the eclipse, the moon cast its shadow over a portion of the planet.

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If we slow the video down, we can see the moon's shadow make an appearance right about now.

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Although the view from EPIC is only once every two hours, we're able to track features like the motion of clouds.

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Around two-thirds of the Earth is covered by clouds.

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Clouds reflect light from the sun, helping to keep the planet cool.

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They also trap heat rising from the surface, keeping the planet warm.

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Changes in cloud cover affect the heat balance and how warm the Earth becomes, which is one of the reasons why we study them.

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The hourly images of the entire sunlit side of the Earth provided by EPIC

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will be used to study the daily variations of features over the entire globe

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helping us to better understand and protect our home planet.

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