Canon PowerShot G9
ƒ/2.8
7.4 mm
1/8
200
Puzzle Series: What is this, or what do you want it to be?
Since I think this one will go fast, I will wait 12 hours before recognizing the winner, whoever is the most correct in their details…
20 responses to “What’s That? (80)”
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Most intriguing. I still cannot figure out what it is. I will continue trying.
It looks like a mysterious shiny, rounded and lit corridor made of light purple travertine with plastic light shades on each side. Seen from floor level.
I can tell you what I WANT it to be. My ride to heaven!
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It is the bottom of a rocket looking downward. I do not know the correct term. The "wings" of the rocket are on either in the photo.
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The texture on the surface looks kind of like carbon fiber to me. But the marks and streaks tell me this thing was going very fast somewhere very hot. I want to say it’s a heat shield, like on the bottom of the Shuttles, but it isn’t tiled and doesn’t look like ceramic.
From what pictures I could dig up in 5 minutes, it looks a little more like the Apollos’ heat shields than the Shuttles’. However, that same search turned up this, with some very promising heat shield pictures. Is it a heat shield on the underside of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule?
Still, this looks too seamless and polished smooth.. -
It looks like the base of a cam. Say a helmet cam that might be taking pictures from a bike jump. The "heat shield" pattern could be just a designy touch added tot he polycarbon.
Then again it could also be a rocket from the Black Rock launches. The pattern would be due to a stage separating unexpectedly causing hot powder to leak down the sides during flight.
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this was taken with a fish-eye lens of the dirt on the carpet of your office being vacuumed up at high speed towards the black hole that is the hoover.
also, the fact that it is spring in the northern hemisphere (and a time for cleaning) corroborates my theory.
perhaps you might want to consider floorboards in future…
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Man, the scale has me flummoxed on this one. Viewing the original size does not help matters. That scale-like pattern visible in the center of the image does look like some kind of composite, but not a weave, really. Hrm.
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Is it a rock? A schist embedded with garnets that has been scraped clean by glaciers leaving striations in the direction of the ice movement?
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Bingo xouroborus and within 1.5 hours no less! (Did you sniff the time-stamp clue embedded in the EXIF file?)
It is the command module heat shield from the Gemini precursor to Apollo, shot at an oblique macro zoom close to the surface.
Derived from ballistic missile warhead techniques, the shape of the dish creates a shock wave that dissipates most of the heat as the capsule reenters the atmosphere at 17,000 MPH. The rest is born by this fiberglass honeycomb filled with DC-325 ablative paste (epoxy-like silicone elastomer).
Given the reentry speed, I had to say that this puzzle will “go fast” =)
This one in on the Gemini Capsule from which the U.S. did its first space walk:
@AMagill: SpaceX rocks. I will be visiting them later this year and will have to compare their shield to this one.
Shamagu first saw that it was a “rocket blast” with “blown bits”, and Mimosa was directionally correct with a “ride to heaven” (and I like your "wings" guess as I was working on some Nomex honeycomb wings for a rocket just last night)
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Even if some of us do not have the background information to make correct guesses, a guess is a guess and counts. Always fun.
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woo-hoo! look at me! hehe
the wear pattern, the hex construction and the curved surface. no exif peeking 😉
the local science center had one on display for years.cool fact about the shock wave!!
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Darn, wish I had seen this in time! Before I read the answer, my guess was right on! (Just came back from D.C. & had a side trip @ Udvar-Hazy!!!) Good one!
Will post some photos from the trip soon.
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