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hi i'm mike massimino and this is inside

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i'd never seen anything like it in space

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and i am inside the flight control room

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and we're getting ready to speak to dan

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burbank and don pettit they're in space

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we're going to see what they're up to

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hey don and uh dan howdy here

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hey man we got you loud and clear comet

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lovejoy and we want to ask you about

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that uh damage did you know what you

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were looking at and how did that bill

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come about actually i had no idea and um

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and

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had a lot of time to keep up with

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current events in them but i had no idea

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it was one night late at night i guess

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december 20th around 11 00 p.m

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and i was in the cupola watching some

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storms and lightning at night

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just north of australia and the sun was

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about ready to come up and right where

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the sun would be coming up there was

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this vivid

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uh greenish white line projecting

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perpendicular from the horizon straight

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up as far as i could see and i had no

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idea very very bright

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and uh it wasn't until the next day that

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we'd heard it was a comet so what what

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did you think it was dan you had

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absolutely no idea did you think you you

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know saw something uh what what went

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through your mind when you saw that

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thing actually

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i'd never seen anything like it in space

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before it did occur to me that it's

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possible it could have been a comet but

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there was no comets of any significant

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size i knew that while we were while

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we're in uh on space station so i knew

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there was nothing except for one very

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very distant one that was uh would be

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very difficult to see without a

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telescope and i hadn't even looked for

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that one before so it occurred it

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occurred to me it could have been a

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comet didn't know how one could sneak up

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on us like that and at one point i'm

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thinking

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maybe this is some

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uh effect of the green flash for example

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at sunrise sunset you may see this but

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the fact that it stayed for such a long

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time and projected across such a you

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know a long 20 degree or so i guess

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about 10 degrees

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across the sky

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i don't know i just really didn't know

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at that time what to think i drew it my

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crew notebook took one hasty picture

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that was poorly composed worse than even

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my my

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my

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pictures and it was the next day that we

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actually had some opportunity to take

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some shots and spend some time and by

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the next morning we had heard from our

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scientists exactly what it was well we