July 25, 2011: Final shuttle return to Earth

[Undertoad]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...amme-ends.html

It is an image like none ever seen before and it is only fitting it should be saved for the final, historic voyage.

Astronauts at the International Space Station captured a breathtaking image of Atlantis as it made its last ever voyage back to Earth.

The shuttle appears like a luminous body of light shooting across the atmosphere and is pictured just as it re-enters the earth's atmosphere - which appears like a yellow dome engulfing Earth.

[sexobon]

Are you sure that's not just sunlight reflecting off a hair on the window?

[ogwen69]

This wins IOTD.

I had a lifelong ambition to see the shuttle launch just once, now I never will. I got close ish, a mate lives close enough to post FB pics from her front porch, and while in Northern Cuba when this launch went off I at least could look in the right direction and hope the cloud cleared. It didn't.

But yeah, my favest pic evah!

[classicman]

That pic is teh Awesome!

[Wombat]

I didn't realise it went into such a steep dive!

[ZenGum]

Sniff sniff.

Does not compute.

I think that photo is of the shuttle (or some other rocket) launching, not landing.

Firstly, that looks like a trail of vapour and/or smoke. That would only happen on take off, wouldn't it? And the trail is at its most intense at the top, suggesting that is where the vehicle is when the photo is snapped - after climbing up.

Further, it is a perfect parabolic curve. It is too steep for a descent. It looks like a lift off, not a return, to me.

Not sure though, I've never been on the shuttle. Whadda you guys think?

[SPUCK]

That was my first thought too. But. The shuttle isn't running engines that you'd see as yellow that high out on the climb. Also it's not really that steep. It's a shot that's massively foreshortened because it's taken sort of from behind the descending shuttle.

[ZenGum]

Mmmmmyeahhhhh ... second thoughts ...


I think it was the phrase "dailymail" that made me wary!

[Gravdigr]

Well that's fairly fucking awesome.

[CaliforniaMama]

I always suspected we lived in a dome and this proves it.

[CaliforniaMama]

I was going to say "I wonder how they took that picture?" but I was a good girl and looked up the answer for myself.

They took it from the International Space Station.

If we aren't doing anymore space shuttles, I wonder what happens to the people at the International Space Station?

[CaliforniaMama]

I can't believe there is no more space program! How can they do this? Shouldn't space exploration be a priority?

[glatt]

As far as the space station goes, it's all up to the Russians now. We are going to ask them for rides up there and back.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by CaliforniaMama

I was going to say "I wonder how they took that picture?" but I was a good girl and looked up the answer for myself.

They took it from the International Space Station.

If we aren't doing anymore space shuttles, I wonder what happens to the people at the International Space Station?

Originally Posted by glatt

As far as the space station goes, it's all up to the Russians now. We are going to ask them for rides up there and back.

glatt's right at the rate of about $63 million dollars a ticket.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Sniff sniff.

Does not compute.

I think that photo is of the shuttle (or some other rocket) launching, not landing.

Firstly, that looks like a trail of vapour and/or smoke. That would only happen on take off, wouldn't it? And the trail is at its most intense at the top, suggesting that is where the vehicle is when the photo is snapped - after climbing up.

Further, it is a perfect parabolic curve. It is too steep for a descent. It looks like a lift off, not a return, to me.

Not sure though, I've never been on the shuttle. Whadda you guys think?

maybe I can help compute this...

I think it's the shuttle at the beginning of its re-entry into the atmosphere, not a rocket launching.

It makes a vapor trail where there's atmosphere and water to make the vapor, this happens in other places where there isn't a rocket launch. A jet airliner makes a vapor trail, a contrail, a condensation trail, right?

Next two points together please.

The earth is very nearly a perfect sphere. A single orbit is very nearly a perfect circle. Now, imagine this. Take a circle, a large disk would be helpful. If you look at the disk from a low oblique angle, the edge of the disk makes a curve that looks like a parabola, just like in the picture. When you see a bicycle wheel, in a picture or an illustration, it's almost never a circle, it's an ellipse, right? You're looking at a section of the circular path the shuttle's making from *above* and slightly to the left of the shuttle, over it's left shoulder kind of. The shuttle is moving away from the photographer in the ISS.

It is getting brighter at the "end" of the track because the atmosphere is denser as it continues to descend, more water, more vapor, more trail.

Does this help?