Preserved Topic: Schuttle brought down by purple lightning? (Page 1 of 1)

Wow, this is strange...full article

quote:

---

Top investigators of the Columbia space shuttle disaster are analyzing a startling photograph -- snapped by an amateur astronomer from a San Francisco hillside -- that appears to show a purplish electrical bolt striking the craft as it streaked across the California sky.

The digital image is one of five snapped by the shuttle buff at roughly 5:53 a.m. Saturday as sensors on the doomed orbiter began showing the first indications of trouble. Seven minutes later, the craft broke up in flames over Texas.

The photographer requested that his name not be used and said he would not release the image to the public until NASA experts had time to examine it.

Although there are several possible benign explanations for the image -- such as a barely perceptable jiggle of the camera as it took the time exposure -- NASA's zeal to examine the photo demonstrates the lengths at which the agency is going to tap the resources of ordinary Americans in solving the puzzle.

Late Tuesday, NASA dispatched former shuttle astronaut Tammy Jernigan, now a manager at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, to the San Francisco home of the astronomer to examine his digital images and to take the camera itself to Mountain View, where it was to be transported by a NASA T-38 jet to Houston this morning.

A Chronicle reporter was present when the astronaut arrived. First seeing the image on a large computer screen, she had one word: "Wow."

Jernigan, who is no longer working for NASA, quizzed the photographer on the aperture of the camera, the direction he faced and the estimated exposure time -- about four to six seconds on the automatic Nikon 880 camera. It was mounted on a tripod, and the shutter was triggered manually.

In the critical shot, a glowing purple rope of light corkscrews down toward the plasma trail, appears to pass behind it, then cuts sharply toward it from below. As it merges with the plasma trail, the streak itself brightens for a distance, then fades.

--SFGate.com

---

Now, that is the strangest thing I've heard so far...wonder if it is real? And what that could be...some type of upper-atmosphere type phenomena, that we know little about? An Elf, perhaps?



[This message has been edited by WebShaman (edited 02-05-2003).]

more info on elves

Heh, you might want to capitalize all the letters of Extraterrestrial Life Form before the "Nah, I think it was an Orc" jokes start rolling in.

Hey, based on Mahjqa's post, I a) learned something new, and b) retract my comment.

[This message has been edited by Perfect Thunder (edited 02-05-2003).]

Hmmm, so it was 'em aliens up there in that there atmosphere that caused that them shuttle crash?

I'll drop the redneck accent, okay?

Is there a site that has the actual photo somewhere?

As far as I know, there isn't...for the pictures (and the equiptment) are under review by NASA at the moment...if anyone knows of such, please post it.

Sorry, should have done a link to that information...thanks, Mahjqa...

You know, we actually know very little about the properties, and phenomena of the very-upper part of the stratosphere...maybe we should learn more, yes?

Here is a bit, taken out of that link (since people here seem to avoid links like the plague...hehe...)

quote:

---

The whole field of upper-atmosphere lights has depended on lucky breaks. Sprites, for instance, were first recorded in 1989 when a group of University of Minnesota scientists were using a brand-new video setup to film a rocket launch. While they were waiting around, they pointed the camera toward a distant thunderstorm. One of them checked the wiring, which they had rigged up in the dark to save their night vision, and fixed a loose cord. Just minutes later, the tape caught a flash so brief that it occupied only two frames. But those two frames of video launched a worldwide research effort and a whole new branch of Earth science.

That kind of serendipity continues. On July 22, 2000, Walter Lyons of FMA Research was at his firm's Yucca Ridge Field Station in northern Colorado, shooting high-speed video of distant thunderstorms. The huge "mesoscale" storm complex wasn't doing much in the way of sprites when a smaller isolated "supercell" thunderstorm drifted northward, blocking the view. Supercells—the typical anvil-shaped cumulonimbus thunderstorms—do not produce sprites, but Lyons let the cameras roll anyway. To his surprise, the tapes showed two new kinds of lights at the top of the supercell, which Lyons has named gnomes and pixies.

--About - Geology

---

Now, I don't think there were any thunderstorms around...but maybe the shuttle itself caused the disturbance necessary for such a phenomena...re-entry at Mach 6, and very hot...or maybe this is something new...who knows? It is interesting (IMHO), however...

[This message has been edited by WebShaman (edited 02-05-2003).]

Creepy, this is Coast to Coast stuff right here, nyu'huh.



njuice42 Cell # 551
icq 957255

There are (weather) radar images of the shuttle breakup. They make the theory of sprites etc. that much harder to believe but we still have much to learn about our host and her atmosphere. [link] This is also the best shuttle disaster info resource I've seen so far. Weather radar images of the event require scrolling.

What's a schuttle?

[edit] This is interesting http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_747632.html [/edit]

[This message has been edited by Bugimus (edited 02-06-2003).]

a scuttled shuttle.



...and unfortunately, this shuttle is well and truly scuttled.

I always thought that was the German spelling and WS was just getting confused again.

That being said, am I the only one who thought "Photoshop" when first reading this thread?

Hehe...*sheepish grin*

The problems of posting, when at work, and of switching back and forth, between German and English...

Your *scheepish grin* is catching