image credit: Pat McCracken
This picture of an SS Atlantis launch in early 2001 is unedited. A combination of the time of day (sunset) and there being a full moon (meaning it’s directly opposite the sun on the horizon) set the stage for this cosmic synchronicity.
LINK/IMAGE [info w/ link to full size]
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wow…thats amazing
You said it Everett, amazing.
Wow, that is awesome. Reminds me of another space/atmosphere event I randomly saw via the Internets: a rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbabara, California, that created an incredible twisted light ray in the sky. Check out this blog post.
Matt: Whoa, that’s excellent.
absolute crap, this is SO much a coincidence I don’t even see the point in posting it. Come on guys, don’t be that ridiculous.
what the hell? who has ever seen a BIG BLUE RAY!!!!!! OOOOOHHHH!!! scary!!!!!!, what a load of crap, anyone who falls for this might as well believe every word in the bible. And I’m NOT going there! Why do you all waste your time believing shit like this? go get a life.
brian: wow, you must be an idiot
oh yeah? well I see what I see and I say what I say, and this ain’t real you bozo!
No brian, you really are an idiot.
This photo is real, that ‘big blue ray’ isn’t a blue ray, and no one but you has claimed it was. It is perfectly clear that this is a shadow being cast by the rising sun and the exhaust plume of the space shuttle. Coincidentally the shadow points towards the moon from the perspective of the viewer.
Quite honestly brian, I think you could be a potential candidate for a future darwin award.
children, children, don’t fight. It is what it is, just enjoy it!
[Comments and subsequent replies removed for generally acting a fool. —Ed.]
I am quite skeptical too. Look at the sun light. How can it be so intense on the smoke plume while it’s clearly the end of sun set ? At this time of day, the sunlight is never so bright. The angle with which the light hits earth makes it so. What we see certainly is not high enough so that it compensates that angle - you can approximate the actual height by comparing with the cars at the bottom of the picture.
Another thing: what is that shadow projected on ? Shadow occurs when something blocks rays of light from reaching a surface, on which the shadow appears. If that picture was true, you could hold our finger in front of a light bulb and you would see a dark space behind your finger. We all know it is not the case.
My 2 cents.
Me again. Sorry for the typos in my previous post. Have a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPdcGJfkhgc
Ok I got it . Little alien guys on the moon shot some kind of beam at the shuttle. This is to make sure that the human race is doing what it has been told to do. Stay away from the moon. People on the internet are sure looney. Hahahahahaha! Don’t tell me this is the reason we can’t go back to the moon either.
Just giving Brian some of the attention he is screaming for. As for the steam trail, it is water vapor and would move from its place of creation quite quickly. You know wind. I think the ‘Ray’ is doctored. Brian makes a good point inbetween his asses and arses. Does that make him the Hole?
i liked Brian. It is too bad you guys made him leave.
THink about. Use your Brian. This cant be real. Maybe god is talking to the shuttle crew. He is telling Ripley there is an Alien on board.
I do a lot of work with photoshop and that looks very much like a photoshop retouch.
Great picture… I’m afraid that I don’t quite understand the skeptics (and lunatics) posting on this, because the photo seems very consistent in terms of relative heights/angles. In other words, there is really no reason to believe this to be fake in my mind, but I wouldn’t want to get into the math/physics behind it either
Dudes: The pic is real. Perhaps slightly contrast-enhanced but real nonetheless. It’s not even that coincidental — a full moon happens every 29.5 days and all it takes is a shuttle/rocket launch at sunset to achieve this illusion.
Be cool.
Have you noticed that Brain is arguing over an empty point? The title and description of this picture is a statement of fact. There is no contravercy. It is just a picture of something cool. The is no attempt at a hidden message. There is just a description of event that lets you know about the picture. If you choose to derive a hidden meaning from this picture it is entirely your interpretation.
On another note, that picture is amazing whether it is fake or not.
PS: Sorry about the typos.
I’m with Brian. It’s another “diver takes iceberg’ picture etc.
nice photo, i want to see that live one day!
That picure is so awesome I am permenently mesmerised after looking at it.
Although I dont really understand what the shadow is cast upon. Yet since the shuttle is going into space and the sky is coloured pink because of relected sunlight. Is it possible that the smoke plume is high enough that the shadow is cast upon the sky itself? maybes aye maybes no
How can this be a real picture?
If the sun were behind the moon (a requirement to cast the shadow) then how could the moon be full? The moon is only full when the suns light hits it from the front. The Shuttle must be between the source of light (Sun) and the Moon. Unless of course you subscribe to the Moon being a source of light (as some creationist nutbags do).
Also, is it just me, or does the shadow extend beyond the moon in this picture?
Anyone ever seen when the sun is behind a cloud and you get ‘rays’ of light around it, like here:
http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~doswell/photopg/crepusc.JPG
This is the same, but from the other side. The shadow is cast on the water, dust, etc. in the air.
d4ve:
“Look at the sun light. How can it be so intense on the smoke plume while it’s clearly the end of sun set ? At this time of day, the sunlight is never so bright. The angle with which the light hits earth makes it so”
Because while the sun barely hits the ground, it hits the trail at near 90 degrees.
Jeremy:
I’m quite sure that where we see the smoke being hit by the light is way too low to form a 90 degrees angle with sun rays.
Jeremy - in the example you have given the light source is the sun, and the clouds obstruct that light source.
In this instance the shadow implies that the light source is behind the moon. This can’t be the Sun in this case because it is a full moon and the Sun must be at an angle and direction similar to the viewer. If the sun were behind the moon (necessary to create the shadow) then the moon would not be full.
And does the shadow extend beyond the moon, or is that just a figment of my imagination?
I suspect this is (badly) Photoshopped…
Stopes: The shadow extends “beyond” the moon inasmuch as it extends below it — where the vectors of the shadow and the light reflected from the sun meet. The shadow is parallel to the earth’s surface — that’s why the effect is occuring at all.
THIS PROVES THAT THE SHUTTLE HAS CONSCIOUSNESS! THE MACHINE IS ALIVE! IT CAN POINT OUT THINGS!
This is a picture of the STS-98 launch just after sun set. It is real. I saw this myself as I walked out of the Launch Control Center. I have been on every Space Shuttle launch team.
Stopes, the shadow is from the sun light (on the smoke plume) which had set just before launch. The Shuttle plume entered the sun light as the vehicle ascented. This is real my friend. A one in a million picture.
Jeremy, think son ! The sun has set at ground level however the atmosphere just above the launch site is still in the sun light.
Brian, This photograph is real, not retouched at all.
Is the shadow not cast by the Sun hitting the plume left by the shuttle exhaust which is then casting the shadow towards the moon (and beyond), the fact that the plume is so brightly lit up by the Sun and also if you look closely you can quite clearly see the shadow start from the plume going away from the direction of the sun, suggests it can be nothing else…
Nice photo though….
Great shot, except for that “unedited” qualifier in the description.
That one little word turns the whole thing into a steaming pile of horse crap.
When was the last time any of you saw a shadow in the shape of a perfectly straight line projected across a clear sky that didn’t get softer as is it got farther from the object casting it?
Rays of light can be cast across the sky in straight lines, but shadows need something to fall upon.
Unedited? Horse Crap!
Not only that, but if y’all are so sure it’s not edited, then where’s the rest of this “shadow?”
How come only the mostly vertical part of the smoke trail is casting it? Why isn’t the half of the smoke trail that leads off to the left casting a shadow? It’s just as brightly lit as the other, shadow-casting half.
Horse Crap!
In an eclipse, an object can create two zones of shadow. If any part of the illuminating object is obscured, a penumbra is generated. IN a solar eclipse, the observer will see part of the sun covered. If at the right distance, and the object is large enough, it may totally obscure the illuminating source, as occurs in a total eclipse. Here, we don’t see the penumbra, which unlike the umbra, increases in size with distance. Which also begs the question - why do we see a shadow at all?
Forget the shadow (although there is no way it would be that pronounced for so far). Can anyone explain the smoke plume near the ground and why the abrupt change in color from white to dark….it seems there is a thick white trail from the ground and suddenly goes thinner and darker? And, shouldn’t there be a launch tower with lights on visible near the horizon somewhere?
This is hilarious. Don’t ask me why, after coming home from a dinner, I bumped into this and read it from top to bottom. Is it real or fake…. does it matter? Discussion starts 4 Jun and ends… with my comment at least, 12 Sep. All that time wasted over a picture. Might as well be a painting. Holy s., we waste a lot of time. I’m going to do something useful. Sleep. Tchau.
More of a physics question:
Objects in general create a larger shadow the further they are away from whatever they are projected onto. Shine a flashlight at a penny that sits against a wall, then move the penny closer to the source (flashlight) - the shadow on the wall gets bigger. In this case the ’sun’ (flashlight) has light that is blocked by the ’shuttle’ (penny) and projected on the ‘moon’ (wall).
So the question is, why would the shadow grow smaller? The light from the sun could be so wide that only a small angular area of the apparent size of the sun is blocked - enough to cause converging rays to meet behind the shuttle, but for that arguement, the apparent size of the sun would have to be huge. There is also the possibility that the light diffracts around the edge of the shuttle, but that should cause a more diffuse shadow without clear margins.
I don’t buy it.
Chuck: “How come only the mostly vertical part of the smoke trail is casting it? Why isn’t the half of the smoke trail that leads off to the left casting a shadow? It’s just as brightly lit as the other, shadow-casting half.”
Because inorder to see a shadow it there must be something for the shadow to “land” on. In this case it was a haze layer. The upper shadow is not seen because it is above the haze layer.
Steve “Which also begs the question - why do we see a shadow at all?”
Because of the low altitude haze layer.
Mirsar Wees: “although there is no way it would be that pronounced for so far)”
Well it was, I saw it myself.
“Can anyone explain the smoke plume near the ground and why the abrupt change in color from white to dark….it seems there is a thick white trail from the ground and suddenly goes thinner and darker?”
The Solid Rocket Boosters produce the smoke which is initially not in sun light since the sun had just set. The first part of the Smoke plume also has a lot of steam added to it from the water on the launch pad. Water is sprayed over the launch pad to reduce acustic pressure (sound) The heat from the exhaust evaoprates the water which then recondences into steam
And, shouldn’t there be a launch tower with lights on visible near the horizon somewhere?
John: “This is hilarious. Don’t ask me why, after coming home from a dinner, I bumped into this and read it from top to bottom. Is it real or fake…. ”
It is NOT a fake. I was there as a witness.
bob: “I don’t buy it. ”
You should it is a real un retouched picture.
dave996@yahoo.com
It took me a while to understand what was going on here. Let me try to explain a bit. Imagine you had a cylinder about the width of a toilet paper tube that stretched for 100 miles. Let’s pretend that cylinder is completely invisible, but you “know” where it is. If you looked through that tube, the brightness you would see depends on the number of particles that are lit up in the tube. Now let’s pretend that you “covered” half of the tube, blocking light from hitting the particles in that section of the tube (also, the covering is invisible to you but blocks light). If you again looked through the tube, you would see that the light becomes much more dim, since there are fewer particles reflecting light back at you.
This is essentially what’s happening in the picture. The trail of the plume is so long (remember the spaceship is ascending the whole time, even when it looks like its going downwards), that it actually blocks the light from reaching a large percentage of particles in your field of vision. The “shadow” isn’t small at all, but more like a large wall (many miles high, most likely) that you are looking at from below, which is why it seems so thin. If the camera was oriented higher when the picture was taken, or on a different side of the launch, you wouldn’t notice any effect at all.
It’s kind of like fog. If you look through fog, you can “see” the fog because you see so much of it, but if you stand above the fog, you probably won’t be able to tell it’s there since so little of it is in your line of sight.
If that isn’t clear, I can try to explain it another way, but I’m very certain that that is what is going on here.
And to add a little more to that, part of the problem here is that people keep talking about “seeing” a shadow. You don’t see a shadow. You see light. When you “see” a shadow, what you actually see is a difference in the amount of light reflected off of objects back to your eyes.
Why does space seem dark? Is it because there are so many shadows? No, it’s because there is nothing for the light to reflect off of. You can’t see anything unless light reflects off of it.
I went and looked up the height of the Sears Tower as I was trying to figure this out. It’s about a quarter of a mile high. If you stand at the bottom of the Tower and look up, you can’t see any “shadow” cast by the Tower because it just isn’t tall enough. Now, if the tower was 10 miles high, like the plume probably is, then you would see a difference in contrast if you looked straight up into the air from the bottom of the tower. Part of the sky would see brighter than others because of the number of particles reflecting light. 10 miles is sufficient enough to block a fair percentage of particles.
Hahaha. Hahahahaha. I think I enjoy reading the responses to these things more than the posts themselves.
Anyway, cool photo.
See, Brendan uses his Brian,
and Pod 6 as jerks.
Brain, I wish I knew if that was a compliment or not… so, thanks? (said with a tone similar to, “I’m Ron Burgundy?”)
LOL i think i like reading the comments better than anything! so yah i agree with sven on that! but yah i think its a cool photo and the comments are priceless!
See, people are so insecure that they are afraid to believe something it real for fear they’ll look stupid for doing so. NASA seems to believe it’s real and they’re smart than the lot of you.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070603.html
testsicles, there’s a difference between believing something is real, and believing someone’s explanation for why it’s real.
By the way, you’re link is just another mirror of the link directly under the picture’s caption labelled “LINK/IMAGE”
waw thys bryan guy is so totaly right you are idiots
So the people that started to think the American government faked the missions to the Moon are now thinking that they are also making obscure pictures where they get vapour trails to cast a shadow in the direction of the Moon.
Seems to make sense.
LOL brian needs a hug
OK, here’s my take. I figured it out after reading the first batch of idiot “FAKE!” responses.
It has a lot to do with WHERE the camera and viewer are located. You see, the angle of the plume is basically in a single line of sight from the viewer. It is well past sunset. The sun has wrapped around the earth far enough for the bottom of the plume to be “behind” the earth. Therefore the first lit part of the sky is where the plume gets bright, and the lit sky actually goes skyward as it approaches the horizon or moon. The darkness is the shadow, but it’s so dark because it is allowing you to see space. Without reflected light particles the sky is revealing space. So the dark blue is a slice of space that the plume has opened in the sky. The path of the plume has basically sliced the light from the sky and the angle of view has created a perfect cut through the lit atmosphere. Go to the top of a mountain at sunset, and look away from the sun and you will see a similar image. Cool stuff. I have seen similar lighting on the top of Mt Washington in New Hampshire.
Matt: Nope, the effect would be the same no matter where you were standing — as long as you stand behind the shuttle.
Perhaps this effect is a job for the MythBusters… It is very cool, tho.
Do an image search for “crepuscular rays” and more specifically “anticrepuscular rays”. Also do a search for the terms for an explanation.
A new image via Astronomy Picture of the Day (link):
Don’t hurt yourselves.
Relax everyone.
Just go on NASA.org and search for the photo. It is there along with an explanation from one of NASA’s astronomers along with the photo credits from the guy who took it.
NASA would not put its reputation on the line by posting a doctored photo on its very own website.
even i have seen a cloud have a shadow. its the same type of thing. if you have ever seen a cloud with a weird flat dark projection, thats the shadow. same thing with the trail from the rocket. its just, not as big as the cloud, so the shadow is not as big. derka derka. dont need to be a scientist to figure something out. and even then….lol
Ooh pretty…
And I can’t think of anything else to say, that wasn’t the most intelligent comment around
You know, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe
had an intensive phenomenology of light and colour, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Colours
Looking at this spaceshuttle image (with it’s blue shadow) reminds me of the theories we hear about why the moon goes red when it is eclipsed by the earth; the explanations don’t make sense. I see that reflected in some of the posts here.
The point for me is that darkness/shadow are not the absence of light, but are what arises when something material obstructs light (which is omnipresent). The same also applies for colour.
Gotta love the human urge to shout “conspiracy!” Haha we’re a crazy lot. Coming from a past where I’d live off of conspiracy theories I’ve learned that people shouldn’t jump to conclusions so quickly, one way or the other. Both sides of any debate would do well to deliberately attempt to create a strong case for their opposing argument. Then they may realize that the universe is so complicated that its often impossible to be certain of something simply because we can think of reasons for its truth. Truth does have a capital “T”, its not relative. What makes people think of it as relative is the enormity of its complexity at times, which cannot be wholly grasped by a mind that can only store so much information.
Wow folks,
Everybody needs to calm down. This photo is REAL. I was present for the launch atop the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy.
The only reason the clouds are changing color is because the sun is setting and as you get higher into the atmosphere, there is more light present, thus reflecting more white versus a darker red and orange.
The shadow is just created by the multiple shadows from the clouds converging into one area, ironically pointing at the moon this go around.
You can see this in Florida all of the time when you have thunderstorm clouds present in the center part of the state and not on the East Coast. The shadows from the tall Cumulonimbus clouds create shadows that move eastward over the Atlantic.
Simma down, folks, its all real.
Will.
Yeah, the nasa site does have it. This is real. I was highly skeptical at first, ready to agree with brian, but there you have it.
http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070603.html
yay! we have a winner
it is amazing picture…………
thanks for posting this picture
I remember going to a talk when I was in middle school about how all the “fake” stuff in this photo happened and is actually completely real, and it almost amuses me when people go all crazy about how “it’s photoshopped”. The shadow can be easily demonstrated with a fish tank with a few drops of milk in it, a flashlight, a dark room, and some sort of stick. geez, people.
i have been seing your debate and i agree with will i have to thank i almost forgot that butt i never saw one shadow so thin and about brian i just have three words ying and yang peace
OK. I see it on the NASA site and I’ve read the explanation alongside. I’ve also read the rather interesting, and at times, tiring posts. I have to say that I’d be surprised not only that NASA would publish a photo that was fake (that by no means proves it’s real by the way) but also, why does a smoke trail that isn’t in the slightest bit straight or even straight edged create a perfectly straight shadow? I might be missing something, so I’m open to a credible answer, but if I hold my hand in front of a light (or the sun) it casts a hand-shaped shadow. Why doesn’t the picture show a shadow representing the shape of the smoke trail.
Also, a lot of you guys really need to work on your spelling and grammar. Discussions and debates are a lot clearer if people learn how to use the English language correctly… eats shoots and leaves!!!
You think it’s real just because you found it on the NASA website? Weren’t they the dudes that faked the whole moon landing thing in the 60’s?
explanation for picture:
the shuttle isnt casting the shadow, the sun is setting behind the moon, the “big blue beam” is lack of sunlight to various particles in the air. it just happens to be in line with the shuttle. if it happened to be inline with the earth itself, it would be a solar eclipse.
What a hoot to read these comments. I took the photo and its real and untouched. If you google “Shuttle Plume” you can find many sites with explanations of the photo. The best explaination was in the Boston Globe - but that site is no longer online.
Regards
Pat: Thanks for stopping by and clarifying, awesome shot.
why does everyone think it is so ironic that the shadow goes to the moon? Look at the phase of the moon. It indicates that the sun is hitting it from aproximately the other side of the earth. The shadow has no other direction to go.
Also the point about the shadow narrowing in regards to what we expect from experiences with flashlights. In the atmosphere it works quite differently as light is refracted and reflected. We see one light source, but the ambient light will cause narrowing in a shadow. Without ambient light everything in a shadow would be completely dark. Another thing to consider is perspective….the shadow isn’t necessarily narrowing as much as it seems, but at a greater distance appears to be doing so.
It always amazes me how large, intelligent groups of people argue over such insignificant points. Why think so small. Is this progression or regression? It’s a beautiful picture; nothing more; no matter how much we’re all for or against it’s ability to be. Have peace.
As a student of astrophysics I can tell you that this is entirely possible, but not plausible. It could have happened but is unlikely it would exist long enough for a photographer to capture it. So there you go, stamped with the possibly unlikely stamp from the physicists.
Doesn’t this have more to do with meteorology than astrophysics? And last time I checked, “students” don’t generally have all the answers.
So you can file your “stamp” under I for Irrelevant.
This is a neat photo, folks. Enjoy it for what it is. The pointless background chatter you are all engaging in is utterly unnecessary. Go debate the Loch Ness Monster or the Kennedy Assassination if you’re actually looking for intrigue.
The dense exhaust cloud is blocking the sun’s rays and creating a shadow, which just happens to be in line (from that particular perspective) with the moon. What is the great mystery here? My 8-year-old understands what’s going on here…. What’s wrong with you people?
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