An Astronauts View of Atlantis Descent

Blazing a tiny trail across the face of the Earth, the Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its final descent on July 21, 2011. An astronaut snapped this photo from the International Space Station, showing the ionized plasma plume created by Atlantis descent through the atmosphere. The greenish glow hovering over the planet is airglow, which occurs when molecules in the high atmosphere release energy at night that they absorbed from sunlight during the day.