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From a million miles away, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR)

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is capturing sparkling glints of light in images of Earth.

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The Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC)

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on board DSCOVR has seen hundreds of these flashes,

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caused by sunlight reflecting off tiny ice particles floating in the air almost horizontally.

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DSCOVR is not the first satellite to see the sun glints.

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In 1990, the Galileo spacecraft

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captured some of these flashes in Earth’s atmosphere while en route to Jupiter.

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Studying the glints from DSCOVR can offer insight

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about how light reflects off Earth’s atmosphere,

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and how that could affect the planet’s radiation budget.

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In the future, a similar method could potentially be used to identify ice crystals

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in the atmosphere of exoplanets, an early step to evaluating their habitability.