Amazing NASA photo shows Earth from 1 million miles away

NASA released an outstanding color image of Earth on Monday showing the sunlit side of the planet from 1 million miles away.

The image from July 6 shows North and Central America and was taken on the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite with NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera, according to a statement.

EPIC will start taking photos each day of Earth soon, available 12 to 36 hours later so people can see them on a Web page by September, NASA said.

The objective is to study — for the first time — daily changes over the "entire globe."

From NASA:

The image was generated by combining three separate images to create a photographic-quality image. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrow band filters — from ultraviolet to near infrared – to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used in these color images.

Photos: Amazing pictures of Earth