AUTHOR=Gorkavyi Nick , Carn Simon , DeLand Matt , Knyazikhin Yuri , Krotkov Nick , Marshak Alexander , Myneni Ranga , Vasilkov Alexander 

TITLE=Earth Imaging From the Surface of the Moon With a DSCOVR/EPIC-Type Camera

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Remote Sensing

VOLUME=Volume 2 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/remote-sensing/articles/10.3389/frsen.2021.724074

DOI=10.3389/frsen.2021.724074

ISSN=2673-6187

ABSTRACT=The DSCOVR/EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory) observes the entire sun-illuminated Earth from sunrise to sunset from the sun-Earth Lagrange L1 point. The L1 location, however, confines the phase angles to ~2o-12o, a nearly backscattering direction, restricting an observer of any information on the bidirectional surface reflectance factor (BRF) and/or on cloud/aerosol phase function. Deploying an analog of EPIC on the Moon’s surface would offer unique opportunity to image full range of Earth phases, including observing ocean/cloud glint reflection for different phase angles; monitoring of transient volcanic clouds; detecting of circum-polar mesospheric and stratospheric clouds; estimating surface BRF and full phase-angle integrated albedo; monitoring of the vegetation characteristics for different phase angles.