If you happen upon some video footage of the entire launch, I highly recommend it. It's fascinating.<br /><br />During many launches (including of the Space Shuttle and other rockets), what looks like smoke or flame will seem to come out of the front of the vehicle. This is actually neither smoke nor flame (except in some unfortunate circumstances). It's a condensation cloud. The same thing happens to fighter jets going supersonic, and even in some subsonic aircraft. For instance, if conditions are right, you can see condensation clouds form over the wings of airliners on approach, or producing long, beautiful streamers coming out from either wingtips or, more commonly, the flaps. The wingtip and flap ones are actually forming in vortices, and sometimes you can even see the spinning motion in the streamer. It can be disturbing if you don't know what it is.<br /><br />Basically, it's a consequence of moist air being compressed in front of the vehicle. As the air expands and cools back down, water vapor condenses and forms a cloud. They can be very beautiful, and very strange. Watch for these clouds on the next Shuttle launch, if you have NASA TV access. It doesn't always happen (it depends on dew point and ambient temperature) but when it does, it can be very pretty. They'll form mostly around the noses of the ET, SRBs, and Orbiter. On the Saturn Vs, these clouds could form off of any protruberance -- the nose of the escape tower, the nose of the CM, the LM's housing, the conical transtages, and possibly even the tail fins (although it's awfully hot down at that end).<br /><br />The other thing you're seeing in this picture is what vogon13 already pointed out. As the rocket climbs, the air gets less dense and the plume expands considerably. It often changes color as well, because this affects combustion. Complicating the picture is that you actually aren't seeing the rocket from the side anymore. It's tipped away from the camera and thus foreshortened. (I <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em> -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>