Although it looks fake, this viral footage of the Moon orbiting Earth is actually real. It’s just not new, despite making the rounds again this week; it actually was captured over 6 years ago.
Back in 2015, a NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) captured this unique series of images displaying the ‘dark side’ of the moon. The ‘dark side’ of the moon is often used to refer to the hemisphere of the moon that is facing away from Earth. However, it is more properly called the ‘far side’ as it is exposed to an equal amount of sunlight as the side facing Earth. We can never view the ‘far side’ from Earth due to a phenomenon called tidal locking, which occurs when an astronomical body takes the same amount of time to complete a full rotation around its axis and fully orbit around its partner.
Although DSCOVR’s primary purpose is to monitor solar winds for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the satellite also houses NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) which captured these images. This four-megapixel CCD camera and telescope maintains a constant view of Earth as it orbits and takes 13-22 images every day.
In order to capture Earth’s ‘natural color’, NASA combines three different monochrome exposures taken 30 seconds apart. The final combined image has a slight green offset to the right of the moon and thin blue and red offsets to the left of it which is due to the Moon’s movement between each exposure.
If you wish to view more images taken by EPIC, NASA publishes daily color images of different views of the Earth as it rotates throughout the day.
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49 Comments
A very beautiful gift to flat-earthers.
NASA released an animation of what they want you to see! An animation is not real!
Actually it’s not an animation it’s 3 different colored layers taken 30 seconds apart then combined. Dude,read the article. Maybe you won’t sound so ridiculous next time.
Can’t be real, because earth rotates on its tilted axis about 28 times while the moon is making just one orbit around the earth. This animation shows the moon orbiting as fast as the earth rotates.
See explanation below, Feb 7, 8.34
Lol, am I the only one who “read” the article and that the image is an animation from alleged pics?
Just show us the real picture!!
But the satellite taking the picture is moving, too. It’s in orbit around us, not just sitting there stationary at a fixed point while everything spins below it. Sheesh, people – “maintains a constant view of Earth as it orbits.” IT orbits. Lol? Good heavens, guys…
LMAO! If anyone believes this is real I feel sorry for them. If the Earth rotates at 1000+ mph, then how fast is the moon going? Lmao. Fake.
See below, Feb 7
Where is the real pic?
I can’t believe how stupid some of these comments are. People that know nothing of tidal bodies are saying fake without even understanding what happens.
Where are the stars.
Sick of the CGI space nonsense you people are pure evil
And out come the flerfers.
Here we go again: “Dark Side of the Moon” Get this straight please!
The correct expression is “The Far Side of the Moon” Every side of the moon is lit with sunlight 13 times each year. There is no permananent “Dark Side of the Moon”
The editor has “Pink Floyditis”
Frank M, This satellite is orbiting the sun, not the Earth, at the L1 Lagrange point, where given the net gravitational pull of the sun and earth it has an orbital period of one year, same as the Earth.
The moon is 240,000 miles from the Earth. The first linked article mentions the images were taken over about five hours. So the arc length traversed by the moon is about 240000*2*3.14 *5/24/27 miles = 11600 miles. The satellite is 750,000 miles from the moon so the moon traverses arc subtending 11600/750000 = 0.0155 radians (or 0.0.155 / (2 pi) *360 degrees = 0.89) degrees ) from the viewpoint of the satellite. Viewed from the satellite the Earth subtends an arc of 8000 miles / 1000000 miles = .008 radians. So the moon appears to traverse a bit under twice the diameter of the earth in this view in 5 hours.
In 5 hours the Earth rotates by 75 degrees, which seems roughly consistent with observed motion of North America in these images.
Itsflat, so to answer your question directly the moon is going at 240,000 miles *2*3.14 / (27*24 hours) = about 2300 miles per hour.
Wheres planet x? Should be right behind the moon.
Nik, The stars are much fainter than the earth at this distance (1000000 Miles) using an exposure long enough to see the stars which vastly over saturate the image of the earth. See for example this article https://www.simonbooth.photo/photographing-the-night-sky-the-moon-and-the-stars/ which discusses how you can’t take a picture of both moon and stars from earth (and if you don’t believe him get your camera and try doing it yourself next clear night).
Looks like the moon’s not rotating as it passes?
Moon takes 27 days to rotate, so in 5 hours it turns .0077 of full rotation or about 2.5 degrees.
Fake and you don’t even get to see the entire image because they put a stupid ad that intrudes from the bottom.
scitechdaily goes on the “don’t bother” list.
Please don’t add to the discussion. Please. thanks.
You do realize that if you double tap the image it will remove the ad and oh lookie, it will blow up the image in much greater detail.
Have you guys never heard of a time lapse video?
I know this is fake because where is Jesus and the pearly gates? Outrageous lies.
It’s because the Earth is FLAT
Actual photos time lapsed into a video for illustration purposes. Does any body read anymore?
If you’re CLOSER to the moon than the earth, the moon is going to be MUCH larger. From this perspective, the earth would be COMPLETELY covered by the mass of the moon. The moon isn’t a small rock that’s like a mile out from Earth’s atmosphere, it’s a massive object a quarter the size of our planet and it’s overr a QUARTER MILLION MILES AWAY. How does it look this small compared to Earth while traversing it? This is an absurd CGI rendering of supposedly “real” photographs and in NO WAY should be called ‘real’
Except it’s not CGI. It’s 3 different color images taken 30 seconds apart and then combined. Surely not ever a half wit like you could make the jump of calling that CGI.
nate: please don’t talk. You’re making us all dumber with your comment.
The earth is much smaller from photos of the moon landing, see earth rise photo. How is it that the earth is so big in this real photo when the Apollo photos show the earth much smaller?
@Adam A wider or narrower field of view on the camera lens will determine how large the earth looks in the picture. These photos are either zoomed in on the earth or cropped. As for why the moon can appear a different size relative to the earth in a photo: just get a basketball, a baseball, and a phone camera and take a bunch of pictures from different locations. It will all quickly make intuitive sense.
All that Flat Earth baloney above from an ego-challenged cult of insanity. Obviously there is so much intuitively obvious natural evidence of spherical planets. When you let something molted drop through the air what shape does it naturally assume? Spherical. Rain? Spherical. Bubbles in liquid.. again, spherical. The Earth molten once in space… obviously would be spherical too. Flat Earth is completely non-intuitive and relies on rationalization not evidence, whereas we can see spherical bodies are natural when liquid or gaseous objects are suspended in other amorphous materials or space.
Why do people confuse proof with lack of understanding? They all could just ask a question and learn, instead of they use anything they don’t understand as proof for something to be unreal. Fascinating and scary.
Looks so fake, it must be real…
How come we haven’t been ‘back’ to the moon?
The biggest reason is money
Wow, this has brought out all the idiots..the camera is in stationary orbit, its not a film, its pictures, if they wanted to fake it you buffoons, they could of whittled something prettier far easier.
Idiots
Everything that NASA shows you is fake, space is fake, we need to quit giving NASA $60 million dollars a day they give no proof of anything.
There’s plenty of evidence that NASA is totally legit. You simply and unreasonably reject it all
All that spinning, and no cloud movement/formation change. So incredibly fake, as everything is from NASA.
LMMFAO TO THE PEOPLE IN THESE COMMENTS. THANK YOU , YOU JUST MADE MY DAY.
I’m gonna have to agree with the fact that flat earth people have grossly misused the miraculous gift of the human mind. The simple and sad truth is that most humans, especially spoiled humans like many in the US, and other over-“developed” or extremely self absorbed societies, are not only allowed but encouraged to pursue their whimsical & willful ignorance. They create a habit of arguing before understanding.. denying before listening.. fighting a war without knowing the reason.. preferring to trust in themselves to judge before studying the simple logical given information.. like asking themselves for directions to a place they’ve never heard of.
If this is a time lapse….then we just threw away a whole lotta $$$….FFS…
I love how the clouds don’t move.. ever
The clown show is just about over fellas..
You can fit 30 earths between the moon and the earth. In this video you couldn’t even fit one
The size proportions don’t work; e.g., view the Earth in the 1966 photos of the Earth taken from the Moon. The Earth is quite small. If one imagines backing out farther to a distance sufficient for the Moon in its entirety per its appearance in the above photo, the Earth would have to be that proportionately smaller. It would be much smaller than the Moon. You couldn’t be far enough from the Moon to view it at its size here and see the Earth at the size represented in this picture. However genuine the pictures may be of each, they couldn’t represent pictures capturing both Moon and Earth.
Correction: “…backing out farther to a distance sufficient for the Moon TO APPEAR in its entirety PER the above photo…”
You do realize that if you double tap the image it will remove the ad and oh lookie, it will blow up the image in much greater detail.