Or it could be a SYMPTOM of a problem induced by a meteor or foam impact on the TPS.
I think this will turn out to be another lens aberration. There was a thread on this earlier today, and it turns out that certain digital cameras show purplish aberrations when there is a lot of contrast, such as a bright point on a very dark background.
The photographer continues to request his name be withheld, adding he would not release the image publicly until NASA has a chance to study it.
Trying to raise it's value it seems.......
I assumed those were rhetorical questions. The article was plain on this subject.
I had heard the Russians had been working on this. There was a special on the Discovery Channel about it a few weeks ago.
I have not been able to ascertain the type of camera, but if it is digital; especially a Digital Nikon, there are serious issues with exposures of that length. Digital cameras do not deal with time exposures the same way film cameras do. Longer exposures (more than the normal 1/30th, 1/60th) impact the image with more noise and shifts to different spectrums. This has to do with the CCD sensors. You could go to any of a number of professional digital camera sites on the net: www.dpreview; www.robgalbraith.com just to mention a couple and do some research.
This is a well known issue with Nikon Digitals--especially the higher end ones.
Of course there was the theory that we were invading Iraq to capture the reverse engineered UFO that crashed there. We might be too late! //sarcasm off//
Sorry for the multiple posts...couldnt help myself.
In addition, I have another sidebar to throw into this discussion. Are the anamolies said to be photographed in the mideast (an unidentified and mysterious arc of red light) seen when the crew was photographing lightening strikes.....were those images automatically transferred to NASA, or, were they destroyed in the crash?
Further, what sort of connection does the aforementioned arc mean in "light" of the patch designed for the Columbia crew.
Art Bell, please RETURN to the building.
Some people wouldn't know a credible source, or person if it bit them on the butt.
This is dubious as a possible cause, but it is related to high atmosphere electrical discharge.
I say its unlikely because this occurs in the presence of storms. if you can take a picture of the shuttle it would seem that there would be no storms in the area. It does show the possibility of electrical discharge pretty high up in the atmosphere. Posted for interests sake.
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/images/licae/sprites.htm
_________________________________________________________
Sprites and jets
Reports of strange bursts of colored light
coming out of the tops of powerful
thunderstorms date back to the 1800s. And
even though aircraft pilots reported them in
the 1950s and '60s, they remained unconfirmed
until recently.
These weird flashes were first observed from
the ground, when, quite by accident, they were
captured on video on July 5, 1989 by University
of Minnesota scientists John Winckler, Robert
Franz and Robert Nemzek. The scientists were
actually performing a calibration test for a low
light level monochrome camera, and weren't
particularly looking at the thunderstorm to the
east of their observing site at all. The next
morning, while viewing the test video, they
saw giant twin pillars of light extending
upward more than 30 kilometers above the
thunderstorm.
The flashes were first recorded from space by
the Space Shuttle (STS-34), as it passed over a
highly active thunderstorm in northern
Australia on Oct. 21, 1989. The shuttle's
monochrome TV cameras filmed what are now
called sprites and jets for the first time from
space. The observations were being conducted
as part of the NASA/Marshall Mesoscale
Lightning Observation Experiment. Otha H.
Vaughan, Jr., of NASA's Global Hydrology Center
was the principal investigator.
In 1994, while flying an extremely sensitive
color camera normally used for auroral
photography in a high altitude aircraft,
University of Alaska scientists confirmed that
the flashes have a generally reddish color
which often fades to purple or blue in the
downward extending tendrils. Dr. Davis
Sentman of UAF named these "sprites" after the
creatures in Shakespeare's "The Tempest," in
part because of their transient, ephemeral
nature. The UAF team also discovered and
named blue jets.
The sprites appear high above the
thunderstorm while the jets shoot out from the
top of the thunderstorm. Sprites appear to
cascade as high as 96 km (60 mi) above the
Earth. Sprites can look like giant red blobs,
picket fences, upward branching carrots, or
tentacled octopi, and can occur singly or in
clusters. The jets appear to be ejected from the
storm top with velocities as high as 100 km per
sec and move up as high as 32 kilometers.
There are two common theories about the
formation of lightning. One is that lightning is
merely an atmospheric breakdown that
creates low-energy electrons, which, in turn,
excite the air to fluoresce. A second theory
holds that the air can break down over large
distances, generating 1 million times the
energy per electron, and that those electrons,
when they stop in the atmosphere, produce
gamma rays. The latter theory is supported by
the Burst and Transient Source Experiment
(BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma Ray
Observatory which has detected gamma rays
coming up from the Earth - not deep space -
when the spacecraft was over thunderstorms.
Researchers want to know what effect upward
lightning may have on future commercial
aviation operations and high altitude balloon
research flights in the stratosphere. The
Boeing 777 already can fly to 18 km (60,000 ft),
and future aircraft will fly even higher.
____________________________________________________
If you like this abstract see this more complete article:
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd10jun99%5F1.htm
It has photos of the phenomena to (Helpful to people like me.)