Good view of a bolide meteor filmed by NASA

[Atollman]

If the payload bay camera footage correlates to the tracking information at the start of the video, the shuttle had just passed over a region of coastal Venezuela known to generate more thunderstorms and intense lightning than anywhere on the planet. The camera was slewed to a receding target, which would be appropriate if someone was interested in pointing at coastal Venezuela. Shuttles always travel west to east, so in the still frames, it is moving to the left, which is east. I'm certain the lights aren't cities, I think its high cloud tops of a thunderstorm, maybe IR overlay of visible low light (although I didn't think the regular payload bay cameras had IR).

Camera wiggle or not, the object didn't appear to move perfectly straight, and it just didn't look like other meteor/space junk video I've seen on payload bay cams. I wonder if this might be a sprite, or blue jet, which when viewed from an above/side angle might look like what we see. Working against that theory is the bright blobs didn't produce any normal lightning flashes during the video.

 

[MeteorWayne]

bushwacker:

That's a common misperception based on the way the human mind-eye visual system works. One instnictively assumes that an object that becomes larger is moving closer; that's not the case for meteors...

 

[MeteorWayne]

Interesting Atollman, if it is indeed an IR image, what you say makes a lot of sense about it being a thunderstorm complex. ANd you are correct that it is receding, so that does make Venezuela the most likely target. I still say a meteor is the most likely explanation, butI'd have to see some IR sprite images to compare it to.

Sure wish I could find the actual raw footage with some details on what kind of imaging was in use...still looking.

Thanx for the good thought, and welcome to Space.com!

Wayne

 

[bushwhacker]

thanks for the reply wayne. so if atollman is correct, then the streak would be coming up. as jets and sprites emanate from the tops of thunderclouds as opposed to normal lightning.

 

[MeteorWayne]

hi bushwacker...Yes human perception (and perspective) leads to a lot of problems with meteors. Many fireball report interviews I've done say "It was really close and landed just over the hill", then 200 miles down path you get "It was really close and landed just over that hill", then 500 miles later you get "It was really close..." you get the idea

Stuff that happens in the sky (whether observed from below or above) don't fit into our earthbound experiences so people assume (unconciously) that it looks and works the same, but it isn't like that. You have to look at and understand the real physics, where the events are taking place, and how they are projected on a flat sky, and then interpreted. Interesting stuff.

BTW, I am searching for some ISS/Shuttle sprite images, that will give me a better idea.

Wayne

 

[MeteorWayne]

From what I've found so far both sprites and blue jets are excluded based on the observed phenomena on the video.

First, both are very short lived phenomena a few hundred milliseconds at most (most sources suggest a few tens of ms); the video object lasted far longer.

Second they are very diffuse and faint; that doesn't really fit either.

Finally, they move straight up from the thunderstorm top, and clearly the object has significant transverse motion; it wasn't anywhere near a thunderstorm at the end.

Still looking, though

 

[Atollman]

I've seen Sprite video that lasts about as long as a small meteor; short flash and its gone. This video is definitely on the longish side for both a Sprite and a meteor. Duration and faintness is a spectrum specific statement, a Sprite might appear brighter and longer in IR or something other than enhanced visible light. A meteor would also be visible longer and appear brighter with the right camera, but to me this still looks like an energy discharge, possibly travelling upward, possibly moving south to north along a line of magnetic flux, maybe some of both.

The apparent motion might not have been as transverse as it appears, the camera was locked on the bright blobs for many seconds, and the blobs were receding at 6 miles a second. Shuttle altitude of ~220 miles, no idea how much the camera was zoomed in. Could have been more of a cloud profile than it appears. If you Google "STS-80 Sprite", you get a lot of hits, indicating that perhaps this mission, they had specific equipment to look for them. Many of the other videos are purely low light payload bay camera shots, and have lots of lightning flashes, but it seems like more than a coincidence that this is STS-80 video.

 

[kg]

I looked on google earth to try to find a match and I think maybe were we are looking is the Isla de Margarita off the coast of Venezuela. The question is "why are aliens visiting Venezuela?"

 

[astronomyguy]

This is certainly not the only time a meteor was captured by cameras on the shuttle. I remember a press conference for a misson a number of years ago. The crew were narrating the movies they made and one of the crew pointed out a meteor that streaked across the frame.

Meteors seen from space by astronauts (and cosmonauts) are a rare event but not an unknown one.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I've seen Sprite video that lasts about as long as a small meteor; short flash and its gone. This video is definitely on the longish side for both a Sprite and a meteor. Duration and faintness is a spectrum specific statement, a Sprite might appear brighter and longer in IR or something other than enhanced visible light. A meteor would also be visible longer and appear brighter with the right camera, but to me this still looks like an energy discharge, possibly travelling upward, possibly moving south to north along a line of magnetic flux, maybe some of both.

I haven't seen anything in my research so far that indicates that sprites or blue jets travel along lines of flux. Everything I've read says they go straight up. From several hundred kn away, thet would mean that the path wount be directed "above" (i.e. a straight line away from the camera) the generating thunderstorm from the shuttle viewpoint, not left to right as is seen on the video.

And most meteors last from fractions of a second to a second or two (shorter is more common), except for "earth grazers" which just brush the top of the atmosphere which can last a few seconds, or asteroidal fireballs that penetrate very low into the atmosphere which also can last many seconds.

MW

 

[MeteorWayne]

This is certainly not the only time a meteor was captured by cameras on the shuttle. I remember a press conference for a misson a number of years ago. The crew were narrating the movies they made and one of the crew pointed out a meteor that streaked across the frame.

Meteors seen from space by astronauts (and cosmonauts) are a rare event but not an unknown one.

Certainly that's true, but this is the most spectacular one I've seen...

 

[kg]

I saw the exact same vidieo footage last night on the history channel. I don't recall what the name of the program was but it was about how NASA is supressing proof of UFOs! Gotta love the history channel.