Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Jan 24, 2005 3:26:02 GMT -6
Strange Glow in the sky Before the Shuttle's return
It appears that the crew of the Columbia witnessed a strange glow in the atmosphere and recorded it. NASA has now released some stills from this.
More from "The New Scientist":
Columbia crew saw new atmospheric phenomenon
A new atmospheric phenomenon was caught on video by the crew of the space shuttle Columbia just days before the shuttle broke apart, new findings suggest.
Astronauts relayed the video to NASA in real-time during their 16-day flight. But the agency did not release the full data to researchers until several months after the mission's tragic end on 1 February 2003. All seven crewmembers were killed when the shuttle exploded while re-entering the atmosphere.
Yoav Yair of the Open University in Ra'anana, Israel, and colleagues spent more than a year analysing the video, which was originally taken to study atmospheric dust. But a single frame of the video - representing just 33 milliseconds - shows a mysterious reddish glow in the night sky on 20 January 2003.
Entire story here: www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6897
--------------
There is speculation that the crew witnessed the covert H.A.A.R.P activity in operation, but it is unknown if it had any significance with the final outcome of the mission.