See the New 'Blue Marble'

A satellite operated by NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense has just reedited one of the most renowned images in history – the “Blue Marble,” snapped by the Apollo 17 crew on its way to the Moon.

The new version was pieced together from a larger number of photos, collected on January 4, 2012, as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite orbited Earth. The spacecraft has since been renamed to NPP Suomi.

Datasets required to compile the composite image were collected using the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument, the largest and most important aboard the satellite.

I find the quality of this image to be exquisite, and the NASA website also provides it in higher resolution. Check it out.