[CyberAnt]

I'm seeing it the opposite way - the left wing is to the left of the picture and the plume is off the right wing - but there is normally a plume during reentry.

To me it says the plane is reentering sideways instead of forwards.

Houston ... we have a problem

[Kevin Curry]

The image is awfully stable for a shuttle travelling sideways at mach 18, don't you think? Common sense tells you that at that speed (heck, at almost any flying speed> the tiniest deviation from the designed nose-first beeline path will cause immediate catastrophic tumbling and disntegration--certainly not the several second rock-steady sideways glide posited on this thread..