Unseen video emerges of Challenger shuttle disaster

Amateur footage has emerged of the moment on January 28 1986, when the Nasa space shuttle Challenger broke up 73 seconds into its flight.

Florida optometrist Jack Moss filmed the disaster, which claimed the lives of seven astronauts, on his new video camera before locking the tape away in his basement for 24 years.

"That's trouble of some kind," Moss says on the video, which was posted on the Guardian today, as a stream of white smoke emerges behind the climbing shuttle. "That didn't look right."

Marc Wessels, executive director of the Space Exploration Archive, who obtained the footage from Moss, told the Guardian: "I don't think Mr Moss thought it was anything significant. He put it down in his basement with other tapes he had and just forgot about it... It's remarkable raw footage."