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energy state and give off photons. What you see is a glowing atmosphere. It's like a parking lot at night that's foggy and maybe has street lights illuminating the fog. That's about the intensity of the glow you see. But that would be very difficult to take pictures of with your camera unless you had the proper film and an exposure setting that allowed you to take it. As Space Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis flies through the upper part of the atmosphere, it will glow also. You'll see-not the individual molecules, of course-but the effects of molecules that smash into Orbiter, get excited into a higher energy state, and grow. Again, that would be difficult to take pictures of. Finally, let me say that we don't only look at the Earth.

There are tremendously interesting views of the stars at night, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, when you look at the large and small Magellanic clouds. The incredible number of stars that you can see with the naked eye will just blow your mind. It's just incredible. If you could take some pictures of things other than the Earth, that might be nice. If we are in an attitude that doesn't support taking pictures of the Earth, all is not lost.

I guess I will close by saying I will encourage you, after our flight, to see if we can get together again and have another teleconference like this. We can talk about some of the pictures we saw and what we recorded. Mike Bloomfield can give you some of his impressions as a rookie. I'm sure he is going to be as enthusiastic as you all are to see the images, because he will be seeing them for his first time up in space and you will be seeing the pictures along with him for the first time.

And by the way, good job on all the work here. This is great. I really didn't expect all of this—this is a real project. You have done a fine job and we are really impressed with all the work that you have done—so keep up the good work.

5.2 Discovery from the shuttle

Tom Jones, Mission Specialist, STS-59 and STS-68

Dr. Jones discusses his experiences in discovering a crater while viewing the Earth from the shuttle on missions STS-59 and STS-68.

I've been interested in planets, asteroids, meteorites, and craters since I was in elementary school. After taking a lot of science courses in college, and then flying for the U.S. Air Force, I went back to school to study the space sciences very seriously. I worked hard to become a planetary scientist, and was able to work with NASA studying how asteroids were formed, and what they're made of.

Since craters on Earth and other planets tell us so much about the size and composition of asteroids, comets and meteorites,I approached my first space flight with the idea of looking carefully at Earth for traces of these scars from extraterrestrial impacts. I wanted to see the famous, well-known craters, but I planned to keep an eye out for unusual geological features as well. What good is a planetary scientist in orbit if she/he is not doing some exploring?

On my first mission I did see many of the impact craters and volcanoes I'd hope to see, but nothing that I thought would qualify as new. However, in looking at our 12,000 photographs of Earth after the Space Radar Lab 1 mission in April 1994, I noticed a striking circular feature in a picture of Korea. No one had mentioned seeing it as they took the picture—in fact, we don't know who took that photograph. The green ring sure looked to me like a crater, and big enough to study from orbit. Surprisingly, it wasn't listed in any of the crater catalogues I checked. So, I made a note to look for it again on my second flight on Space Radar Lab 2, in October 1994.