Quote:
Originally Posted by scarlettcontent
|
This guy is an idiot. What you are seeing is spent rocket fuel. Space shuttle's rocket engines use monomethyl hydrazine (MMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) as the oxidizer which is visible in space by the kind of camera (CCD) they were using. The apparent change of course they seem to do is caused by firing of a small reaction control system (RCS) thruster on the space shuttle.
In addition to that, There are more than 50 sources of ice on the shuttle as well as lots of debris such as insulation flakes from inside the payload bay. This includes 38 primary RCS jets and 6 vernier jets (which burn the hypergolic [self-igniting] propellants of nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine), an air dump line, a waste water dump line, a supply water dump line, two fuel cell purge lines (the hydrogen one is always leaking water), etc. Floating debris near the shuttle is a common sight. The particles usually, but not always, spin and depending on the axis of spin they may or may not flash, and depending on the speed of spin their flicker.
And don't forget, all of that crap is travelling at the same speed as the shuttle - it does not get left behind as it would if the shuttle were flying in an atmosphere.
People who see white lights on film or in the sky and who automatically jump to the conclusion that it must be aliens are lazy-assed jerks. "Ockham's razor", anyone?
Is there Alien Life out there? The Drake Equation,
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation)
where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and
R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.[3]
Says YES. But are the aliens here? No, they're not. Sorry to all the romantics out there.