What is lighting up Space Shuttle Endeavour's main engines?

Question

Al Jazeera has a terrific collection of Space Shuttle photos. In photo #11 we can see something bright in each Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) as Endeavour lands. What might that be? A reflection off the back of the combustion chamber? Something related to the auxiliary power units (APUs) venting through the SSMEs?

Here's a smaller cropped version; see the "photo #11" link for the original.

Endeavour landing

$\begingroup$ left over propellant in the plumbing? $\endgroup$
– Nic
Jan 20, 2012 at 14:05 — Nic, Jan 20, 2012 at 14:05

Zhaph - Ben DuguidZhaph - Ben Duguid · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-24 21:34:36Z

11

You can see in this shot from a Gizmodo article the injector at the centre of the engine is quite reflective.

I assume that it is this catching the spotlights illuminating the shuttle that we can see in that shot.

Injector Nozzle on SSME from Gizmodo.

answered Jan 24, 2012 at 21:34

Zhaph - Ben Duguid

$\begingroup$ Yep, seems logical. $\endgroup$
– ghoppe
Jan 24, 2012 at 21:39
$\begingroup$ Ha... Ha... Ha... So simple! $\endgroup$
– Earth is a Spoon
Dec 10, 2012 at 5:13

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