If you were a satellite, you'd probably want to be DSCOVR. Unlike most of the junk floating around Earth's orbit, this piece of flotsam doesn't have to jostle for a position in an orbital commuter lane—DSCOVR just gets to hang out, chilling in a gravitationally neutral spot between the Earth and the Sun. While it's there, it calmly waits for waves of solar particles to stream by, beaming back warnings to Earth when it catches them. And while it's waiting around for those solar storms, it gets to take amazing pictures of its home planet. DSCOVR has the best view of Earth in the solar system—just check out this amazing shot of the moon passing in front of the Earth.

Over the last few weeks, we've been treated to the first amazing images coming back from the satellite, which reached its geostationary home on June 7 (it took a little while to ramp up its photo-taking abilities). Never before has a satellite been able to send back images capturing all of the planet in a single frame at these resolutions. But that Earth-facing imagery is the result of a historical accident.