Starship Asterisk*

Is it possible that the airplane (Aug 22) is between the cloud and the observer and that a telephoto lens has foreshortened the perspective? Alternatively, is it possible that the airplane made a 180 degree turn after dropping the flares and is returning to view the cloud? This would place the clou...

Furthermore, the whiteness suggests to me that water out of the sky is condensing in the trails of the flares, filling in the empty space with the impressive cloud. On the other hand, in the conditions under which that should happen, you should also see contrails from the C-17's engines... The whit...

As a further aside, the aircraft that is pictured to the right of the smoke formation is likely NOT the aircraft that depoloyed the flares. If you look at the picture you can see the approach lights of the aircraft - these are mounted on the FRONT of the aircraft. When viewed full-size the cockpit w...