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17-Year-Old Corrects NASA Mistake In Data From The ISS (bbc.com)
"A British teenager has contacted scientists at NASA to point out an error in a set of their own data," writes the BBC. An anonymous reader quotes their report.
A-level student Miles Soloman found that radiation sensors on the International Space Station (ISS) were recording false data... The correction was said to be "appreciated" by NASA, which invited him to help analyse the problem... The research was part of the TimPix project from the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS), which gives students across the UK the chance to work on data from the space station, looking for anomalies and patterns that might lead to further discoveries. What Miles had noticed was that when nothing hit the detector, a negative reading was being recorded. But you cannot get negative energy... It turned out that Miles had noticed something no-one else had -- including the NASA experts. NASA said it was aware of the error, but believed it was only happening once or twice a year. Miles had found it was actually happening multiple times a day.
There's a video of the student -- and his teacher -- describing the discovery, a story which Miles says his friends at high school listen to with "a mixture of jealousy and boredom"
There's a video of the student -- and his teacher -- describing the discovery, a story which Miles says his friends at high school listen to with "a mixture of jealousy and boredom"
Many types of radiation sensor have an average count they pick up in their sampling window. This is then subtracted to get an reading which, on average, is zero but which for any given reading could be negative if the count fluctuates low when there is no particle incident. It might be that they had an issue with the pedestal fluctuating.
All this guy did was look at a column in an Excel spreadsheet, saw that there were negative numbers for the energy and contacted NASA to ask about it. Has the standard of A' level science fallen so far in the UK that this is now newsworthy or is this just an indication of the appallingly low level of science at the BBC?
Reaction on Slashdot: 50% jealous, 40% offtopic ranting, 10% insightful.
Parent qualifies as "jealous". Sheesh, the boy noticed something NASA - by their own account - didn't. That doesn't make him a total badass, but it's more of a contribution than you or I have made. Give him some credit.