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What was the cloudy plume trailing the space shuttle last night?
Last night I watched the shuttle Discovery and the ISS pass over my town, at about 8:40 PM CDT. Discovery led the ISS by about a minute.
I have seen the ISS and the shuttle(s) pass overhead many times, but this one was a bit different. There was a faint, hazy "plume" trailing the shuttle; very dim, best seen using averted vision, but definitely there. It reminded me of the look of a comet's tail. I didn't have the presence of mind to stick my thumb out; otherwise I could give you a good estimate of the plume's angular size; however, my impression from memory is that when the shuttle was at maximum altitude, the plume was about 1 degree in length; and maybe 1/3 of that in width. This would have made it about 6 or 7 km in length. (Based on info from Heavens-above.com, which says the shuttle was 382 km distant at the time.)
I thought it might have been an artifact of hazy skies (or dirty eyeglasses); except the ISS came by just 1 minute later, and it definitely did NOT have any such plume.
What was this? Could it have been a water dump or something?
Since posting the question I've found a few pictures of water dumps here: (http://www.satobs.org/h2o_dump.html ). These look a lot like what I saw, except in my case the plume happened to be trailing the shuttle. It's looking more and more as if "water dump" is the explanation.
3 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
I'm not sure, but you aren't the first person to mention this.
An earlier asker described the shuttle as having a tail, to the point where (s)he thought he saw comets..
- ?Lv 45 years ago
ought to it have been a water unload or some thing? confident it ought to have been (yet i do no longer know for specific that it grow to be). Your description rather suits the classical description of a water unload (or of a risky liquid particularly -- and water is risky whilst launched in area). The ISS, of direction, can no longer arise with the funds for to offload lots liquid, because of the fact it desires to recycle as much as they might (they have not got the posh of touchdown each and every time they ought to reload...).
- RaymondLv 71 decade ago
Could it have been a water dump or something?
Yes it could have been (but I do not know for sure that it was).
Your description certainly fits the classical description of a water dump (or of a volatile liquid in general -- and water is volatile when released in space).
The ISS, of course, can't afford to dump much liquid, because it needs to recycle as much as they can (they don't have the luxury of landing whenever they need to reload...).