Incredible Space Shuttle Picture: Is it Real?

By Nancy Atkinson - February 5, 2013 at 5:35 PM UTC | Space Exploration
shuttle-clouds.jpg

This fantastic -- or perhaps fantastical -- image of a space shuttle launching through the clouds has been getting a lot of comments on the social media circuits. But is it real?

No, it is a composite of two different images put together by photographer

Richard Silvera.

"The picture of the sky and clouds was taken by me from an airplane," Silvera wrote on

his website

, "and the shuttle is a picture from NASA. Then the assembly was done in Photoshop & Lightroom."

While this is a beautiful image, as some have commented on the

G+ Space Community

, there are several tell-tail signatures that this image could never have been taken. The shuttle did not launch perfectly vertical (roll program starts shortly after launch, about 10 seconds after main engine ignition), and with the restrictions on aircraft being in the area during a launch, no one could have had this perspective and been so close as to take a picture like this.

However, here is a "real" image to compare, of Atlantis launching through the clouds, during the STS-129 mission in 2009:

[caption id="attachment_68233" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption ="Space shuttle Atlantis emerges through the clouds over Launch Pad 39A on a balmy Florida afternoon at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Liftoff on its STS-129 mission came at 2:28 p.m. EST on Nov. 16, 2009. Credit: NASA"]

[/caption]

Thanks to Richard Silvera for allowing UT to post his composite image. You can see more of his work

on his website.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com