Quote:
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?
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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?