Time-lapse video of a rocket launch seen from space

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/amazing-time-lapse-video-of-a-rocket-launch-seen-from-space

by slyall • 8 years ago

341 57 8 years ago

Direct link to video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJy1u-N3NY0

amatecha• 8 years ago

Exactly what I came to the comments section to post. Huge pet peeve of mine is "articles" that are just a YouTube video with some redundant commentary underneath that offers zero value beyond the video itself.

codetrotter• 8 years ago

Yeah but that’s not the case here though. The commentary is interesting IMO.

jcurbo• 8 years ago

In this case, though, I don't mind because Phil Plait is a well known science communicator whose articles actually add useful context. I don't mind that his article is linked (although I did go straight to the video first, but I am not the target audience for the commentary).

JshWright• 8 years ago

The article goes into a great deal of detail about how the video was made, the rocket involved, various points of interest throughout the video, etc... You don't think that adds any value?

jere• 8 years ago

Pardon my extreme ignorance, but what is the greenish/yellowish band?

tomfanning• 8 years ago

Airglow!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airglow

lisper• 8 years ago

That's not ignorance, that's curiosity. And it's nothing to be ashamed of.

system22• 8 years ago

It is really hard to post a comment without being afraid of being ridiculed these days.

cs702• 8 years ago

Thank you for posting this.

Watching it elicited in me a sense of awe and wonder at both human ingenuity and the almost unimaginable scale of the universe.

I love coming across postings like this one on HN!

ape4• 8 years ago

Of course its just a dot most of the time. Unlike every sci-fi movie / tv show.

coldtea• 8 years ago

Well, in sci-fi movies/tv-shows they're supposed to be closer.

If the ISS was much closer (which happens, when the crew finally connects), it wouldn't be a dot.

Yetanfou• 8 years ago

No crew in this one, it is a Progress [1] freighter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_(spacecraft)

ASalazarMX• 8 years ago

It was the most inspiring light dot I've seen, I didn't expect I'd watch in awe a light dot today.

TeMPOraL• 8 years ago

Fortunately, videos like this getting visibility means it's more likely next sci-fi movies/shows will make more realistic shots.

streamer45• 8 years ago

Amazing! Why does it look so much like computer graphics? I would't expect to see it like that with my own eyes.

nabla9• 8 years ago

Lack of ambient light and atmospheric attenuation. Significantly more direct light vs indirect light.

If you fly at 35,000 ft the horizon is at 221.3 miles and most of it is dense air. If you look directly downwards from ISS there is less than ten miles of thick atmosphere between the camera and the target.

If you do ray tracing from single light source with few objects and without effects that simulate atmosphere you simulate how the scene looks in vacuum.

gpm• 8 years ago

I suspect also contributing is that the setting here is more like what you usually see with computer graphics than in real life. Very few moving parts.

In real life there are insects, and birds moving around. Wind blowing all sorts of things (leaves, blades of grass, trash, etc), etc. Individual strands of hair. Etc. All things we can't really reproduce with graphics.

Here there is just a sphere with a surface texture and some volumetric effects.

bitL• 8 years ago

1) longer exposure, "averaging" neighboring pixels

2) noise reduction making it look "plasticky"

3) attempts to increase dynamic range with filters that favor certain color hues

That would be my list of possible explanations as a photographer.

drewmol• 8 years ago

Thanks, awe inspiring video!

When you compress a gas it heats up, and eventually the compression is so violent that that air heats up enough to start vaporizing the booster.

I don't think this is an accurate description of what happens on re-entry.

Pfhreak• 8 years ago

Most of the heat does indeed come from compressing the air in front of the booster. The inverse of what happens when you use a compressed air can for a while and it gets very, very cold.

I don't know about vaporizing the booster though. It sure gets hot.

baq• 8 years ago

It’s pushing 10 gs or so. It is burning up.

monochromatic• 8 years ago

It actually is. People call it friction, but that’s not right. It’s adiabatic compression heating.

ThenAsNow• 8 years ago

It’s adiabatic compression heating.

If we're being pedantic (and I don't mean that pejoratively), this would have been more correct if you'd left out "adiabatic". If gasdynamic compression heating is being induced by a fast-moving body in the open atmosphere, it's not strictly adiabatic.

Treblemaker• 8 years ago

Is your disagreement with characterizing the air compression as "violent", or do you have a different understanding of what causes the heating during re-entry?

johnchristopher2• 8 years ago

What are the red blinking lights that enter the view at 1:10 ? It seems huge.

krtkush• 8 years ago

That whole area was really brightly lit.

daviding• 8 years ago

From the video comments the author noticed these and tracked them down. They seem to be power lines and a huge wind generation project in China:

"I asked myself exactly the same thing when editing the video.

I spent several time on Google Earth and I found it's something around the city of Zalantun (Inner Mongolia); in all likelihood, the red lights are mounted on huge power-line trusses or wind turbines. For example, look at this coordinates for power-lines: 47.761390, 123.026970 And wind turbines here: 47.5641695, 122.9092991"

https://goo.gl/maps/jegbbvmmuV92

jcims• 8 years ago

If you go to isstracker.com/historical and search for the time 2018-11-16 18:25:44+0000 you'll see the ISS right above this area. Pretty interesting.

_yrzv• 8 years ago

The wind farm theory others, including the author, have floated looks about right. Here's a video of a wind farm at night elsewhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bABhodyX2nY

JorgeGT• 8 years ago

More timelapses from the Crew Earth Observation programs are available here, along the raw frames: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/BeyondThePhotography/CrewEarthObser... (remember to click in the map to find all the available videos at each region, there are a lot more than those of the landing page)

harshulpandav• 8 years ago

0:49 Something that we won't see for SpaceX rockets.

https://youtu.be/aJy1u-N3NY0?t=49

NikolaeVarius• 8 years ago

Except of course, on failures of the launch or a purposeful non-recoverable mission

zeristor• 8 years ago

I imagine the launch was timed so that this video could be taken. I doubt it’s just coincidence.

Or perhaps they’re launching so the vehicle will end up in orbit close to the ISS and not have to take so long, I believe they’re doing with this with manned launches so they can dock quite quickly.

ceejayoz• 8 years ago

They've been playing with quick launch-to-dock launches lately, so I doubt they did it just for the video.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_MS-09

NASA confirmed on June 28 that if Progress MS-09 launches on July 9, it will attempt a super fast-tracked rendezvous with the Station, docking to the ISS just 3 hours (2 orbits) after launch - making it the fastest orbital rendezvous ever-attempted with the Station.

HenryBemis• 8 years ago

If I remember correctly, ISS makes a full circle of Earth every 90 minutes. Having planned the lift of with 45mins lag/difference would make it "so much" more difficult/challenging/risky to connect. And I guess every second counts when you're up there.

I've seen many videos of lift-offs etc (plus I'm huge Star Trek fan), but this one, made me hold my breath for a good 45 seconds (thank you yoga!)

trhway• 8 years ago

if it comes, the last day of our civilization with thousands of ICBM launching is going to look spectacular.

kakarot• 8 years ago

I was thinking the same thing when I saw the smoke plume. Imagine watching hundreds of those plumes litter the sky from above.

gardaani• 8 years ago

Iron Sky End Sequence tries to show how those plumes would look like. Although, there's only a handful of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvtxFnG9pD8

superasn• 8 years ago

Watching the earth from above like this always reminds me of what Carl Sagan used to say about it:

"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

garren• 8 years ago

I think this is synonymous with the “overview effect”[0] that astronauts experience (or at least as close as one might get without being in space). If only we could send half of congress to space...

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect

thegabez2• 8 years ago

Imagine what an observing alien species might be thinking as they watch this.

mirimir• 8 years ago

For some, "Cool!". For others, "What's the ETA on those impactors?".

thegabez2• 8 years ago

I'd imagine it'd be like watching a moldy blueberry shoot a spore... "Whoa, thats pretty cool but I better toss this thing in the garbage before someone gets sick."

miltondts• 8 years ago

Reminds me of this video of the cameras on a booster during launch and reentry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCOyOvOw5c

system22• 8 years ago

This one is incredible.

jacquesm2• 8 years ago

That is an amazing video, the way those cities roll away under the camera, at any point in time you are looking at a few hundred million people at the same time.

joatmon-snoo• 8 years ago

For me, that was hands-down the craziest part of this video. I've seen the numbers for the velocity of orbiting bodies, but seeing just how quickly the camera was moving - wow.

jacquesm2• 8 years ago

It is a time-lapse, so the video appears sped up compared to realtime.

ridgeguy• 8 years ago

Yeah, even though it's a time lapse, it conveys pretty well the fact that the ISS is going 5. miles. every. second.

If I left my home right now at that speed for San Francisco (~36 miles), I'd be ready to park in ~ 7 seconds.

Most of the universe operates at velocities and under conditions we can barely imagine.

yahyaheee• 8 years ago

Where are the turtles?

dylan604• 8 years ago

They're all the way down

MRD85• 8 years ago

This is absolutely beautiful, it's exactly what I needed to see tonight.

igravious• 8 years ago

Dear lord, awe inspiring.

Time-lapse video of a rocket launch seen from space

Related Stories