A camera aboard NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite provided a stunning view of the dark side of the moon. DSCOVR at one million miles away from earth captured a series of photos that have been converted into an animated time-lapse.

It’s not possible to see the dark side of moon from earth and scientific community logged in a first after getting the images in 1959, thanks to Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft that sent back the first images.

NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on DSCOVR captured the photographs on July 16 over the Pacific Ocean. Researchers combined three exposures with different light filters to create EPIC’s images of earth.

“The high quality of the EPIC images exceeded all of our expectations in resolution. The images clearly show desert sand structures, river systems and complex cloud patterns. There will be a huge wealth of new data for scientists to explore”, said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist when the first image was released last month.

NASA looks forward to release more images and is confident to post color images of earth on a daily basis once EPIC starts regular observations next month.

DSCOVR is the result of joint efforts being made by NASA, NOAA and the US Air Force to enable forecasters to make better solar magnetic storm predictions. Solar eruptions pose threats to functioning of telecommunications, GPS navigations and power grids.

The satellite was launched in February. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket piggybacked it in space where it took about 100 days to reach its final orbit destination between the sun and earth.