Video: Vice President Al Gore attends DSCOVR launch

Fulfilling an idea dreamed up by former Vice President Al Gore more than 17 years ago, NASA has released the first in a daily series of Earth snapshots from a newly-launched spacecraft stationed a million miles away.

NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory, a $340 million mission that spent more than a decade grounded in a Maryland warehouse, will begin warning forecasters of dangerous solar storms next month, giving notice of events that could disrupt air travel, radio communications, electrical grids and satellite operations.

Officials from SpaceX, NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Air Force hold the prelaunch news conference for Falcon 9 rocket launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory.