The Glow on the Shuttle's Tail
In the darkness of orbit, astronauts photographed a ghostly orange glow clinging to the Space Shuttle's tail and wings.
What was reported
On early Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s, astronauts taking long photographs at night noticed a faint orange glow, a few centimetres thick, covering parts of the spacecraft. It hung on the tail fin and on the surfaces facing forward along the shuttle's path, like a halo.
The glow was strange enough to become a subject of special experiments on later missions.
Explanations offered
The glow is caused by the spacecraft ploughing through the very thin upper atmosphere at about 8 kilometres a second. Single oxygen atoms and nitrogen gas strike the surfaces facing forward, combine there, and give off light as they leave. Similar effects have been seen on satellites and the space station.
- When
- Photographed from 1982
- Where
- In orbit, around the Space Shuttle
- Witnesses
- Space Shuttle astronauts
- Status
- Explained
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