By Desiree Salas (media@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Jul 22, 2015 08:10 AM EDT

The first ever photo of the Earth as a "Blue Marble" was taken on December 7, 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew, who were on their way to the moon. It would go on to be an iconic image considered to be "the first photograph taken of the whole round Earth and the only one ever snapped by a human being," as noted by The Atlantic.

"You can't see the Earth as a globe unless you get at least twenty thousand miles away from it, and only 24 humans ever went that far into outer space," the publication explained.

And now, a new version of the "Blue Marble" photo has been released by NASA and NOAA Monday. It was taken on July 6, 2015 by the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), which has been designed to "capture an image of the whole planet many times a day" and "monitor specific wavelengths that alert scientists to the presence of certain materials like ozone, aerosols, and volcanic ash; but it will also generate a full disk photo 11 times a day," according to another piece by The Atlantic.

The said image was taken using an Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), which will continue to take photos of the planet every day. The images will then be uploaded to a site about 12-36 hours later for public viewing by the time September rolls around. With DSCOVR, scientists will "be able to study the daily variations of the globe," Time said.

The satellite will also assist in alerting us of solar storms that may affect the planet and "could affect Earth's electrical grid, temporarily taking out other satellites in space," Mashable added.

The July 6 "Blue Marble" image taken by DSCOVR is the first one ever taken by the satellite, showing North and South America. Subsequent "Blue Marble" photos have been composites of data stitched together to create a picture of Earth as seen from outer space. That's because astronauts don't land on the moon anymore, which means there have been no opportunity to take another similar image. As such, the DSCOVR image can be regarded as the second ever snapshot taken of the planet in its entirety and is not the product of composite images.

"Sure, we have lots and lots of images of parts of Earth, taken many times a day, which can be stitched together to give a complete picture of the globe, but there's something about that whole-planet view: a sense of completeness, of closedness," The Atlantic pointed out. "It also has real scientific uses: A picture of the whole Earth measures the planet's changing albedo in a way that composites don't."

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