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

left over propellant in the plumbing? – Nic Jan 20 '12 at 14:05 — Nic, Jan 20 '12 at 14:05

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 24 '12 at 21:34

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 '12 at 21:34

1 Answers1