Comments on: Pic of the Shuttle reentry… from space!

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 03:25:34 +0000

A similar – even better perhaps – image was taken from the International Space Station on the very final Space Shuttle mission ever (STS-135, Atlantis) in July 2011.

Click on my name here to see it or see ‘The fiery descent of Atlantis… seen from space!’ posted by the BA on the 22nd July 2011 at 6:00 AM.

By: Video Demo: Fire Piston

Video Demo: Fire Piston — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 17:48:49 +0000

[...] I bought this fire syringe from the Science Outlet. The video above shows that when the piston is forced down rapidly, the air molecules compress causing a huge increase in temperature. This causes the piece of cotton in the syringe to ignite. This is very similar to what happens with the reentry of the space shuttle into the Earth’s atmosphere. [...]

By: Sfwan

Sfwan — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:12:00 +0000

“Friction” is the production of phonon waves within 2 sliding surface. This is because: when 2 sliding surface were to continuously re-connecting and dis-connecting due to local electrostatic charge, it causes molecular vibration inside those 2 material, which is called “phonon”. –Phonon which had similar frequency to infrared radiation will create heat… (hence… the common dogma: ” friction cause heat”). (the production of phonon also ‘suck-up’ the energy of the sliding material, hence … the common dogma: “friction slow things down”)

I agree @DrFlimmer: ” friction has minor effect in shuttle re-entry”. Thanks for mentioning it.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:02:18 +0000

It would be the Gulf of Mexico, not the Caribbean Sea.

By: Space tweeting | The Skeptics Resource

Space tweeting | The Skeptics Resource — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:21:25 +0000

[...] A few weeks ago, International Space Station astronaut Soichi Noguchi took an amazing picture of Endeavour re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. [...]

By: GeoWonk.com » Blog Archive » Space tweeting

GeoWonk.com » Blog Archive » Space tweeting — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:20:04 +0000

[...] A few weeks ago, International Space Station astronaut Soichi Noguchi took an amazing picture of Endeavour re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. [...]

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:24:35 +0000

What causes it to glow is the friction from all the arguments.

By: Dave Mosher

Dave Mosher — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:29:14 +0000

Very helpful words, DrFlimmer. And at #24.:

“In fact, everything that dissipates heat or that causes loss of energy in a system is referred to as “friction”.”

THAT is what I was getting at, and confused by in the post. I personally take the “big picture” look at things… whether that’s textbook-correct or not, I’ll leave to the physics pros.

Perhaps some conditional wording would have cleared things up:

“This is what causes the Orbiter (as well as incoming meteors) to glow, not friction — in a highly technical sense, anyway.”

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:42:58 +0000

Any idea what the scale and view angle are in the photo? Presumably the shuttle is heading eastward. Was the ISS west or east of the shuttle?

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:30:45 +0000

My friend the late Ron Parise was a Mission Specialist on a couple of shuttle missions. He had a picture at his house that someone sent him of a glowing shuttle reentry trail over Hawaii. He was aboard that mission, so he referred to the picture as: “Me, as a bolide.”