Concepts and technologies described herein provide for the detection of aircraft contrails through the identification of contrail shadows in real time imagery provided during a flight. According to one aspect of the disclosure provided herein, aircraft flight data is received at a contrail detection computer. This data is used to locate an antisolar point on a surface of the earth from the perspective of the aircraft in flight. Real time imagery of an opaque or semi-opaque surface below the aircraft that encompasses the antisolar point is received and analyzed for a contrail indicator. When the contrail indicator is detected, it is determined that the aircraft is creating a contrail.