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SOHO Strikes Back
Nick Lightfoot writes "As seen on /. several days ago, Euroseti is holding a conference to show off it's collection of pictures of 'UFOs' taken by SOHO cameras. SOHO has released a response
page to show how a cosmic ray or other similar ccd artifact could be mistaken for a UFO, especially after the image has been enhanced. After watching Euroseti's video featuring some of the images, I was able to identify one of the 'UFO' images as a comet, and several others looked like they were just planets. Hopefully they will release some images on the web soon so I taking take a closer look at them without having to buy their £15 cd."
They understand that they will never be able to convince the hardcore UFOlogists, but at the same time they recognize the fact that there are a lot of people going "Hey, whats up with that?"
The fringes will never be convinced, but responses like this and Phil Plait's BadAtromy.com will help to explain to the inquiring minds who's scientific literacy isn't what it should be.
This UFO debate has gone on too long. Most of these pitcures will look like cows in space and won't be credible evidence, SOHO or not. There are better things to worry about people.
An interesting thought though... could amateur pics capture something astronomers miss?
In answer to your comment: Yes, of course there is shielding to protect instrumentation...and it's not perfect. Cosmic rays are RAYS not particles, and it's entirely possible to a few to slip by. In fact, they do. As for a series of pictures, a CCD by definition can become saturated for a time; similar to your eye after looking at a bright object, then looking away. This could explain how one ray or packet of rays could cause this phenomena.
Anyone who has seriously massaged data knows the dangers of 'wanting to believe' It is very hard to limit oneself to error correction and legitimate pattern enhancement. This is especially true when one is using off the shelf, not fully understood, tools. It is so easy to introduce artifacts that can be mistaken for reality.
This is exactly what happened to these images, the Man on the Moon image, Man on Mars image, and will continue to happen. People want to believe. They consider themselves cosmopolitan for their ability to accept improbable explanations, but forget the first step was to extinguish all possible conventional explanations, the first of which is systematic error.
The universe does not lie, but it is vague enough so we can easily lie to ourselves. It is as easy to create UFOs out of fuzzy images as it is to create animals out of passing clouds. We can not use either to prove or disprove the existence of anything.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The proliferation of video cameras along with the lack of recent corraborated sightings seems to show that UFOs are not visiting us now. How many people independently videotaped the WTC collapse? Yet there are no current, credible UFO videos. Did 'they' stop visiting in the 1950's? The only way to keep these hoaxes alive is to push them just beyond the sight of the masses. If everybody had a CCD telescope then the hoaxsters would have to resort to doctoring Hubble images to 'prove' their point.
word.
This UFO claim will put SOHO back in the news again. Without it, SOHO is not news worthy.
Same with the Moon Landing Hoax claims. There are teenagers who didn't know we even went to the moon. But since the hoax-program, NASA and its moon landing is a topic of TV discussion and NASA is news again.
Don't kid yourself NASA needs the hoaxer & UFO loonies, because without it, its just a big expensive agency that MTV generation doesn't know or care about.
Sure it has to reply to the moon-hoaxers and UFO spotters, but it gives NASA a great chance to show its footage on prime time TV.
Which doesn't really invalidate his point. Cosmic rays are extremely high-energy particles, because they were emitted, maybe by a quasar or a similar high-energy emitter, somewhere far, far away in another frame of reference, which gives them even higher kinetic energy in our frame of reference.
:-)
Now alpha and beta rays from radioactivity can be shielded against, and alpha rays are just a couple of protons with a couple of neutrons, so you'd think that cosmic rays can also be shielded out completely... except that natural radioactive alpha and beta radiation usually comes in extremely low energies comparatively to cosmic rays. These cosmic ray particles are moving really fucking fast, so you'd need kilometers of tin foil to stop them (you still get cosmic rays underground, though the density of them goes down of course). Obviously there's some logistic problems with fitting that amount of shielding on a satellite
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Yes, the CHIPS may be shielded...
But if you shield the detector so that EM radiation can't get through, how can you use it to take pictures?.
In response to the point about it being in more than one single shot, they explained that because the SOHO sometimes sends incomplete data, and the proggy that puts it up on the web fills in the blanks from the last image.
The shape of these images, which they contend is their greatest strength, is also their greatest weakness.
If you look at the parent of this post, the image shows all of the planets, and their "pixel bleed". Note that all of the pixel bleed is horizontal.
If these images of UFO's we're real, they would be in all different plane's from 0 - 360 degree's, not just at right angles to our point of view.
The fact that every one of their pictures shows the object flying at parallel to the picture really proves, or at a bare minimum indicates, that these are in fact pixel bleed and other artifacts.
IMHO.
What really gets me is that the people searching for UFOs in the SOHO data obviously find that more exciting that the SOHO data... and that's tragic.
I mean, it takes some effort to follow the detailed science SOHO was designed to support, but the images alone should be worth looking at. Go look at this hotshot of four planets and the Sun's outer layers. Tell me you don't find that image awe-inspiring, or that you don't think the ability to get that image is among man's most impressive achievements.
(Yes, I'm a scientist by training, and do find this stuff genuinely awe-inspiring and have no time for those who refuse to learn and chase after UFOs. I never worked with SOHO, but I sat in a lab for three years across from someone who was doing a PhD on SOHO data. I was working on something much more boring for my PhD.)
Hopefully they will release some images on the web soon so I taking take a closer look at them without having to buy their £15 cd."
If these people were interested in science, they'd have release the photos on their web page first, then issued the press releases. When they do it the other way around, it's not about science. It's about the £15.
Whenever there's a big coronal mass ejection or solar flare, I always see pictures from SOHO on the local news. Heck, I've even seen them on Drudge. Space-related news still makes the news on a regular basis. To claim that NASA needs some controversy to get itself in the limelight is just incorrect.
What struck me while watching the video was that every instance of a "saucer shaped object" was very clearly viewed edge on. As is the case with images of galaxies, real space craft would be viewed from many different angles. The fact that each and every image is viewed edge on proves that they are not what they may look like.