Your daily Earth selfie

Six months ago, a joint NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mission launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite, hurtling it into space atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

The mission of DSCOVR, as NASA calls it, is to monitor space weather conditions, such as solar flares, and continuously observe the Earth. The Falcon 9 rocket placed the satellite ahead of us in Earth's orbit of the sun. It faces back towards Earth to maintain a constant, clear view of the sun and the sun-lit side of our planet.

NASA will release a daily sequence of Earth images on the DSCOVR:EPIC website. They'll span the entire globe, every day, creating a visual archive of the whole Earth.

The satellite itself had a tumultuous journey into space. It was originally built in the late 1990s, but was mothballed in 2001. Eleven years later, the satellite observatory was brought out of storage and refurbished for the DSCOVR mission.