Astronauts Photograph an Object at Earth’s Limb

In the first photograph, an object appears near Earth’s limb. It sits close to the center of the image, to the right of the curved line marking where Earth appears to end.

The astronauts photographed the object three times during the space shuttle Columbia mission. NASA’s description notes where it appears in the first image but doesn’t say what it is. The object was captured near Earth, with no identification or further account of the circumstances.

What the First Image Shows

The curved line at Earth’s edge is what the description calls Earth’s limb: the boundary between Earth and the surrounding space as it appears in the image. The object is near the center of the image, to the right of that line. Those are the details the source provides about its location.

The photographs were taken in low Earth orbit, a relatively low-altitude orbit. They were taken during the Columbia mission, between November 19 and December 7, 1996. NASA said so in its official image description.

Three Images, Few Details

The official description says the astronauts took a series of three photographs of an unidentified object. It specifies the object’s location in the first image but says nothing about what appears in the other two. The description therefore does not reveal whether the object’s position or appearance changed from one photograph to the next.

Here, “unidentified object” means simply that the description does not name or identify it. The image records it near Earth, but the accompanying text does not say what it is.

What Remains Unknown

The source does not specify the object’s size or appearance, or explain what it was. It also offers no conventional explanation. The description provides no information about what the astronauts saw between the three photographs.

In the image, the object remains near Earth’s limb. What exactly did they photograph?