Good article on the image analysts studing video and still photos of the Columbia accident.

In the video nation, almost no moment goes untaped, and anyone might be the next Abraham Zapruder, whose jumpy images of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy provided invaluable evidence to a generation of investigators (and conspiracy theorists).



The nearly ubiquitous cameras grab images of mothers slapping their children in parking lots and Rodney King being beaten — and, as it turns out, the space shuttle Columbia during its descent. Some 3,000 people contacted NASA in the days after the shuttle disaster to offer their firsthand reports, still photographs and videos of the shuttle's entry into the atmosphere. Ultimately, some 12,000 videos and images streamed in.

For weeks, researchers combed through the photographs and videos, going to great lengths to verify that each was what its donor claimed that it was. Some turned out to be hoaxes, and a few were not even pictures of the shuttle. The researchers then culled the best and stitched together a video narrative of the flight.

And it has paid off: the images have provided a trove of data that has helped investigators piece together what happened in the final minutes of the flight.

NASA and the independent board investigating the accident have spliced video images together to tell the story of the shuttle's final descent, showing when and where major pieces of debris came off the orbiter.