NASA - Sun activity not responsible for bad weather

[_cj_]

Think you answered your own question.

NASA with all that equipment and science that very few laymen properly understand, or... a plumber who's spotted some UFOs. Sorry mate, no offence, but... well....

i never said they were UFO's - i just didnt know what they were - i'm not particularly satisfied with the email i got back from nasa but i dont know enough to ask sensible questions from them. Perhaps you could helpme out on this one.

the email reads
Alex:

I believe the features that you're talking about are cosmic ray hits on the detector. In the STEREO EUVI images, these generally appear as small star-like features, and do not persist between images. In the initial space weather images, these features are often distorted by the extreme compression applied to the images to allow them to be brought down in the low rate beacon telemetry stream. The initial images are replaced after a few days by the full resolution versions, where one can get a better sense of what the features actually look like.

We have a web page discussing various artifacts visible in the images at

http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/artifacts/artifacts.shtml

William Thompson

yes you get artifacts - these were clearly spheres,

Please feel free to ask yourself - the guy that emailed me is here

William.T.Thompson@nasa.gov


on and dieselboy is right - a lot of the photos have been taken down now

Regards,

alex

[_cj_]

Nice find. I wonder what Apache's view on this is.

your welcome

[dieselboy]

I've just realised what this is. I can't believe it wasn't obvious to me before, but I'm 99.999% sure that it's a Malteser.

[Shalershasker]

I've just realised what this is. I can't believe it wasn't obvious to me before, but I'm 99.999% sure that it's a Malteser.

Mars Planet I think

[_cj_]

I've just realised what this is. I can't believe it wasn't obvious to me before, but I'm 99.999% sure that it's a Malteser.

damn me - you right - i'm so stupid

[_cj_]

oh i've just thought - its too close to the sun - it would have melted by now

[Apache]

The email from the NASA man is entirely plausible, and (as far as I understand it) technically reasonable.

What bits do you find not satisfactory? Why are they 'clearly spheres'? Its a 2D image. Its not possible to say they are spherical with 2D evidence. They are round, yes, but so what? I imagine there will be some interpolation or dither applied so that a single point (a photon hit, particle hit or suchlike - his cosmic ray explanation fits this just fine) even though the detector will likely be a pixel (square), an algorithm processes it and assumes it is a single point hitting somewhere in a pixel and the software outputs a circular image.

We used to use a similar process on low resolution / high speed novel band imagers I cant go into too much detail about. We called it blur-spot, and it gave exactly the same effect to point sources. The software made certain decisions which could lead to a circular artifact with what looked like shadow. The shadow was just the software making predictions about the distribution of intensity of the source based on its previous movement across the field of view.

Now I'm saying too much so I'll shut up :-)

Its not planets, its not spacemen. its limitations of technology.

[_cj_]

so its not a malteser either ?? i knew it would melt that close to the sun

i do understand you post though - thank you

the normal artifacts are blurs or sort of star shaped - never seen something that looks spherical before - but yes it might just be the computer interpreting some data and drawing a sphere - i know it is 2 d but light and shadow accross it make it look spherical - bit weird after it was noticed lots of the pictures were taken down though - dont you just love a good conspiracy

Regards,

alex

[Apache]

i know it is 2 d but light and shadow accross it make it look spherical

There you go again with your assumptions. Just because it might look like light and shadow doesn't mean it is.

See my previous post where I wrote "The shadow was just the software making predictions about the distribution of intensity of the source based on its previous movement across the field of view"

[_cj_]

There you go again with your assumptions. Just because it might look like light and shadow doesn't mean it is.

i know - alright already

so its not a malteser

[_cj_]

although i did once read a theory that maltesers were made in space because the are perfectly spherical

[_cj_]

ahhh it was nice of nasa to put up a webpage just to debunk the space malteser theory

email in today
The apparent sphericity probably has something to do with the compression algorithm. I've just put up a short write-up about this at

http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/artifact...mic_rays.shtml

the non full deff images though - do have maltesers

[_cj_]

just for anyone interested


latest email in

I think there are a lot of theories, but no definite answers yet. There's still a lot about the Sun that we still have to learn. The Solar Dynamic Observatory, which will be launched soon, can help answer some of these questions through improvements in the science known as helioseismology. Check out

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

[Apache]

The apparent sphericity probably has something to do with the compression algorithm.

No sh1t Sherlock...

Also, Maltesers aren't PERFECTLY spherical. They only appear that way, but you've no way of knowing for sure with only 3D imagery to work with.

[_cj_]

No sh1t Sherlock...

Also, Maltesers aren't PERFECTLY spherical. They only appear that way, but you've no way of knowing for sure with only 3D imagery to work with.

oh ffs apache - it's just a bit of fun - i'll send you maltesers and you can put them under your 3d imagry scanner - i think you'll find them perfectly spherical

regards,

alex