Originally posted by wierdalienshiznit
would an ice formation leave such an obvious shadow on the cloud?,as far as i know water casts no shadow.
if it were part of the shuttle discarded during fuel tank ejection,why does the fuel tank catch up the object and over take it?,they should maintain
the same vertical distance according to the known laws of physics.
Ouch, this kind of reasoning hurts my eyes! The upper atmosphere is not a vacuum. There is all kinds of drag due to air resistance and water
particles, etc... the shape and weight of the object would make it's center of mass much less obvious than the discarded tank. The velocity (which is
a vector) would absolutely be different for the two objects.
As for water not casting a shadow, rain drops do, dumping out a bucket of water on the sidewalk sure does...
Also, this could very very easily be a structural mooring instrument, as someone else suggested.
Just wanted to say that though I stick with my above statement, it's also not clear how high up the footage is taken.
Even if the objects are in free fall orbit, their centers of mass would still dictate rotational differences, not to mention any number of collisions
that may have happened between the lighter, more awkward object to change it's momentum.
I actually have a physics test on just this thing tomorrow.
[edit on 1-11-2007 by angst18]