Have You Seen This? Time lapse of earth from space shows solar eclipse

(NASA Goddard, YouTube)


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OUTER SPACE — I’ve never wanted to be an astronaut.

I’m super claustrophobic and the thought of living inside a tiny shuttle for months on end makes my skin crawl. Plus, I’ve heard the vastness of space ironically makes your claustrophobia worse, so trekking around outer space is a hard pass for me.

The only time I reconsider my ban on ever becoming an astronaut is when I see awesome videos like this one.

NASA posted the video on its YouTube channel in July, but it’s started going viral again, and for good reason. The video depicts a 1-year time lapse of the earth captured by NASA’s EPIC camera on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s DSCOVR satellite, according to the video description.

The camera took one picture every two hours beginning in August 2015. It captured the ever-changing motion of the clouds, weather systems and water patterns on our planet. The video also captured a solar eclipse that took place in March 2016 and you can see the moon’s shadow on the earth at about the 1:53-minute mark.

“EPIC will allow scientists to monitor ozone and aerosol levels in Earth’s atmosphere, cloud height, vegetation properties and the ultraviolet reflectivity of Earth,” the video description reads. “The primary objective of DSCOVR, a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force, is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA.”

The video is narrated by scientist Jay Herman who offers interesting insights into the incredible time lapse.

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Have You Seen This?
Faith Heaton Jolley

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