Where In The Universe Challenge #138

Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here’s #138! Take a look and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft, telescope or instrument involved with this image. We provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. And Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

UPDATE: Answer now posted below!

This is the launch of space shuttle Discovery on an earlier launch – STS-70, back in 1995. It is a side view (much like the view that our photographer Alan Walters had from Astronaut Road for STS-133 last week — see our gallery of launch images), so that’s why only one SRB plume is visible. Of course STS-133 launched last week on Discovery’s final mission to space, a very historic page in space history.

13 Replies to “Where In The Universe Challenge #138”

  1. It’s clearly a space shuttle launch. You can tell from the launch pad, architecture of the plumes, etc.

  2. I agree with Sirius_Alpha, I’ll add that I think it’s Discovery’s STS-114 mission launch from KSP LC-39 on 26 July 2005. But beyond that, a little difficult as it could be any shuttle launch.

  3. Martian Defence Forces base in Margaritifer Terra launching the interceptor that took out Mars Polar Lander in 1999. Photo courtesy of Chryse News Network.

  4. Agree that it looks like a Shuttle launch and probably is, but seems too easy. I’m going with a Delta IV Heavy. Launched from either Space Launch Complex 37 Cape Canaveral or Space Launch Complex 6 Vandenberg Air Force Base.

  5. That’s totally Cape Canaveral, but I don’t think it is a shuttle launch. I’m going to guess a smaller delta actually… And it was taken from Space Ship Earth

  6. STS-138 😉
    Ah, that won’t fly, too bad.

    Well, the complex looks like 39A or 39B at KSC, but it could also be the launch of Ares I-X. Or it’s the launch of Columbia in 1981.

  7. It’s a launch! (I know I got THAT right.) It can’t be the shuttle – not enough rocket exhaust. Must be another.

  8. In retrospect it’s obviously a Space Shuttle. You can see the nearly colorless exhaust from the hydrogen burning SSMEs on the left side of the SRB plume.

  9. Interesting. I thought the SSME exhaust would still be visible at that point, that’s why I went for Ares 1-X. But now that spaceguy points it out…

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