2016 Tournament Earth Champion: The Dark Side of the Moon
No, that is not a photograph of the death star orbiting Earth. It is the winner of NASA Earth Observatory’s 2016 Tournament Earth—the Dark Side and the Bright Side. The image shows the fully illuminated far side of the Moon that is not visible from Earth.
The images were acquired by the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the DSCOVR satellite, which orbits about 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Earth. EPIC maintains a constant view of the fully illuminated Earth as it rotates. About twice a year the camera captures images of the Moon and Earth together as the orbit of DSCOVR crosses the orbital plane of the Moon.
The Moon faced some stiff competition on its journey to the championship. In the course of the tournament, it faced a trio of hurricanes over the Pacific, the electric eye of Cyclone Bansi, an underwater volcano, and the wrath of Mount St. Helens. The final round came down to a slugfest between the Moon and an impressionistic bloom in the Baltic Sea caused by a profusion of cyanobacteria. When the voting was over, the Dark Side/Bright Side finished with 59 percent of the vote.
While we aren’t aware of any homecoming parades to honor the 2016 champion, watching the video above (or listening to all of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon) seems like a fitting way to celebrate. The images in the movie below were taken over the course of five hours on July 16, 2015. The North Pole is toward the upper left, reflecting the orbital tilt of Earth from the vantage point of the spacecraft. The far side of the Moon was first observed in 1959, when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft returned the first images. Since then, several missions by NASA and other space agencies have imaged the lunar far side.
