NASA on Wednesday released a stunningly detailed, never before seen, high resolution marble image of Earth from space.

The color filled “Blue Marble” image of the earth was taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard Suomi NPP, NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite.

“This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012,” said NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Being NASA’s next Earth observing research satellite, researchers say that it is “the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.”

Carrying 5 instruments on board, Suomi NPP’s greatest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.

(To see the highly detailed image click on the 'Original (8000x8000) image here.)