These images were taken at 80 minute intervals, as
the spacecraft's distance from Earth increased from 92,000 miles
(148,000 kilometers) to 160,000 miles (256,000 kilometers). They
clearly show the earth's clockwise rotation as viewed from
the spacecraft's perspective, starting from the upper left image. The
south pole is at the center of each image, and the continent of
Antarctica is surrounded by sea ice and storm fronts. The smallest
feature visible is approximately 8 miles (13 kilometers) in size.
The images are in false color, constructed from blue, green, and infrared filters. These colors highlight differences between rock types, water, and vegetation. The red areas on the right side of the lower two images are vegetation in southern South America, and adjacent brown areas are deserts. Snow, ice, and clouds appear as subtly different shades of white and light blue depending on the size of the grains of snow and ice and the types of clouds. These views occur near the beginning of a movie of Earth's rotation, acquired over 36 hours as the spacecraft receded from the Earth. The movie will be available in early February.
Same images in larger JPEG format, 220K
Same images in TIFF, (Tag Image File Format) 2.7M