The Earth Today, Seen from Space

It’s only fitting that the camera dedicated to sending home a steady stream of photos of what our planet looks like right now wears the name EPIC. Living in the future is awesome.

The Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) is on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). The satellite was originally built in the 1990s to track climate change, but the mission was cancelled and the hardware sat in storage for nearly two decades. Now it’s been repurposed to track incoming cosmic storms as part of our very slowly growing efforts to mitigate the potential catastrophe. The mission was the first time SpaceX was responsible for a deep space mission.

Now the satellite is in orbit at a Lagrange point, keeping an eye out for storms while pointing EPIC back us. You can check out the latest photos of the Earth from the mission here.

Contact the author at mika.mckinnon@io9.com or follow her at @MikaMcKinnon.