This image of Earth was taken by NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite on July 6, 2015. The satellite was launched on February 11, 2015, and was 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth at the time of the photo. NASA says it marks the first time an image of the full, sunlit side of Earth has been captured since Apollo 17 astronauts' iconic "Blue Marble" photograph in 1972. Other images of the planet have been mosaics -- not a single view of Earth taken at one moment in time, the space agency said. Deep Space Climate Observatory's primary mission is to monitor solar wind to improve the ability to send alerts about solar storms and other space weather events.
NASA
Data from six orbits of the Suomi-NPP spacecraft have been used to create this composite of southern Africa and its surrounding oceans. You can see Tropical Cyclone Joalane swirling over the Indian Ocean, as seen on April 9, 2015.
Nasa
This global view of Earth's city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and 13 days in October 2012.
Nasa
A Blue Marble image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's Earth-observing satellite, Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012.
Nasa
This 2002 Blue Marble image features land surfaces, clouds, topography, and city lights at a maximum resolution of one kilometer per pixel.
Nasa
The information used to create this image came from a single remote-sensing device: NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS. From 700 kilometers (430 miles) above the Earth on board the Terra satellite, MODIS provides an integrated tool for observing a variety of terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric features of the Earth. The land and coastal ocean portions of these images are based on surface observations collected from June through September 2001 and combined, or composited, every eight days to compensate for clouds that might block the sensor's view of the surface on any single day.
NASA
"The Blue Marble" is a famous photograph of the Earth taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft en route to the Moon at a distance of about 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles). It shows Africa, Antarctica, and the Arabian Peninsula.
Nasa
The first color photograph of Earth was captured on November 10, 1967, five years before the astronauts of Apollo 17 could witness it with their own eyes.